Ni Jian's journal

New Louis Vuitton flagship shop in Paris

People are queueing to get into the shop.

Q Glastonbury Blog won Innovation 2005 Award

The Q Glastonbury Blog, a weblog made using just Nokia Lifeblog has won an innovation award from the Association of Online Publishers (AOP).

"This was a site we put together to contain all our coverage of 2005's Glastonbury Festival. The site editors didn't want to lug around laptops or worry about trying to get an internet connection, so we worked with Nokia and we did it all using their Lifeblog product. Regular readers of this website will know my enthusiasm for this product, and it proved it's worth when the rains came and knocked out everyone else's coverage. Q was able to keep blogging and keep the site fresh as it happened."

The judges commented...

"Q4Music.com/blogs are an innovation for the present, capturing content from the site's own audience. In a busy category, the service has surpassed its competitors and uses technology to its limits to add value for a dedicated community."

Hullut Päivät - Crazy Days in Finland

Hullut Paivät (meaning Crazy Days in Finnish) again!  Many Finns see this twice annally special sales event in Stockmann Department Stores as a small festival.  Otherwise only seen during Christmas shopping, customers are flooding the floors of Sotckmann.  Flight tickets are on sale as well with 445 euros for return trip to Shanghai or Guangzhou. Not really cheap but much better than regular prices.

OCPC in China and blogging

Just learned a new acronym on CNN anchor Kristie Lu Stout's Web log - OCPC for the One Child Policy Crowd.  It covers almost the whole generation in China born after the 1970s.  Although it might be a bit over-generalized but it is quite true for the OCPC who are from relatively wealthy families in cities that they all "always have mobile phones. ICQ is a standard form of communication. They have never known a poor China", as cited by Stout.

I am curiously watching how blogging will spread among them. I personally believe that blogging and especially blogging from mobile devices may take off soon in China, where mobile phone is a far more 'personal' IT device than in rest of the world.  Chinese rely much more on mobile phones for communication than on PCs and landline phones.  The low PC penetration actually could help the acceleration of mobile data applications.  Think of the 200 millions SMS sent each day in China!

On lifestyle trend, China has been heavily influenced by South Korea and to some extend by Japan.  Examples are fashion, pop music, cartoon, mobile contents downloading, online gaming, you name it.  Blogging is already a phenomenon in S. Korea.  The Chinese, led my trend-sensitive OCPC, may follow suit soon.

Some speakers on w-o-m conference

Fergus Hampton about w-o-m strategy

Eric Paulos from Intel presenting some interesting research results about urban life

Hugh Macleod talks about blogging

Ni Jian talks about Nokia Lifeblog and mobile blogging

Though not worked in marketing, I was honored to be invited to talk about mobile blogging and Nokia Lifeblog in the conference. Hugh Macleod, who publishes Gapingvoid presented an interesting case how a blog called the english cut contributed to the success of a tailor's business.

Word-of-mouth Marketing conference in Hamburg

Street scene in Hamburg

Nokia N-Gage case about word-of-mouth marketing

The conference (6-7 Oct 2005, Hanburg) is organized by Brand Science Institute, which attracted about 70-80 professionals worldwide.
Not surprising to me, many cases about w-o-m marketing had involved blogging or other online publishing tools. These online messages have 'infinite shelf-life' (Fergus Hampton, www.mbprecis.com) and 'know their way to go'. The mobile blogging applications in the market such as Nokia Lifeblog would enable people to express their impulsive feelings or share their thoughts easily from anywhere at any time. It will certainly become an important channel of word-of-mouth marketing.
During the evening cooktail party, I had a conversation about art, life and technology with Eric Paulos, who gave an interesting presentation about Study of Urban Atmospheres, in which they studied varias subjects from 'familiar strangers' around you to the world's most expensive garbage can (Walter Carls has a nice blog about it). I have been wondering
- Does technology bring us more happiness? Or are people nowadays much happier than their ancesters, say, people living 500 years ago? Assuming the basic living conditions are similar (e.g. food, housing, medicine, etc).
- Is technology making us more creative for art? Are we going to have many masterpieces left to our next generations besides silicon chips?
We have no clear answer to those questions. Paulos had an interesting comment that many scientific or technology topics had been studied by artiests from perhaps different angels well before by scientists or engineers.

Suunto Observer elastomer strap may have serious defect

Suunto Observer Titanium strap snapped apart after about two-three years of use.

Cracks all over the strap. It is NOT an accident that it tears apart.

Another section of the strap shows many cracks that almost cut through the strap. Image of its opposite is shown in right.

No obvious sign of wear and tear on external surface even though it is seriously damaged (see picture in left) and can break apart any time.

Suunto is a Finnish brand I liked. My former boss and friend Christian Lindholm has some interesting comments to Suunto product user interface (UI) design.

I bought a Suunto Observer Titanium, top-of-the-line model, about two or three years ago. I was in overall quite happy with the watch, or 'wristop computer' as called by Suunto. It is my primary choice when I am traveling or outdoor.  I am not such an 'adventurer' often exposed to extreme conditions.  Couple of ski trips to Finnish Lapland in winter can be the most 'demanding' circumstance to the Observer and I have been relatively idle with sport activities in recent two years due to my new-born son.  It more than surprised me when the Observer slipped off my wrist one day when I was playing with my son in our bedroom about a month ago.

A little inspection to the strap revealed that it was not an accident that the strap broke apart.  Cracks are all over the (inner) surface with many cutting through almost the whole strap.  In short, the strap is sure to break apart at any day, along any of the long cracks.

Considering the very moderate use and age of the device, there seems to be serious defects with the design, material or manufacturing of the strap.  I can not expect the strap of such a watch will break within 2-3 years with normal use.  My cheap 10-year old plastic Casio watch works still very fine.  I consider myself lucky that I was not swimming in a lake or carving in deep snow when the strap finally snapped apart.

Replacement of the strap (with titanium bars) would cost about 80 (?) euros.  Most important, I no longer feel comfortable wearing it any more because I fear the strap may break apart soon.

Suunto's current CEO Juha Pinomaa had long experience with Nokia's mobile handset business divisions before joining Suunto.  Perhaps his understanding to consumer insight and product reliability could contribute a lot to Suunto's business.

Restaurant Yiyuan (Garden of Pleasure) in Beijing

Restaurant sign on a Chinese traditional style doorplate

Painted pirder and roofbeams

Most people prefer to sit in the courtyard in summer time.

The crayfish was so good that I almost forgot to take a photo before I finished the last one.

Though I had lived in Beijing for over 15 years before I moved to Finland the second time in 2004, it is still not an easy task for me to recommend restaurants in Beijing to friends, especially those non-Chinese first time in Beijing. The city is too big - I only know the areas where I lived or visited often; the restaurant business in Beijing is extreamly competitive - very few restaurants can keep their popularity for too long and you can't expect the same restaurants still hold their names or even in business after couple of years.

Yiyuan is one place I could recommend.  It has a lovely courtyard, very nice to sit there, enjoying live traditional Chinese music, except in the cold winter.  The food is mainly Beijing local style, with additions from Sichuan (very spicy) and other varities that are currently popular in the market.  It's a good place for a formal dinner or quick supper.  And I highly recommend their dim sum as snack.

Their price is moderate.  A typical dinner for 4 persons may cost 200-400 yuan (20-40 euros), not the cheapest on that street, which is called Guijie, or officially Dongzhimennei Dajie, a famous restaurant street with tens of restanrants on the two sides of the ~2km span from Dongzhimen Lijiaoqiao (cloverleaf junction) to west.

One plus side, they have well translated English menu with large color photos of dishes.  You won't be totally lost if no Chinese-speaking friends are with you.