TALKING TOUGH: Defence White Paper 2009

In the latest Asialink Essay, Ross Cottrill, currently a Visiting Fellow at the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy, ANU, unpacks, with reference to China, the latest Defence White Paper, Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century: Force 2030.

He notes that “In the case of the messages conveyed by the latest Defence White Paper, there have been complaints from China, and a leading specialist on China has suggested that the paper may have contributed to recent Chinese aggressive behaviour regarding the resources industry.” It may not be a new idea to speak softly to one’s neighbours, he suggests, but it’s good policy.

Read the essay.

China M&A Quarterly 2/2009

Renewed optimism: the M&A activities in China increased significantly from the 2009-low in March, but have not reached the level of 2008 yet. Today Skillnet and LaVolta Principals published its ‘TIMES China M&A Quarterly’ for Q2 of 2009, a quarterly research overview of the state of the Chinese TMT transactions landscape.

This issue includes the following highlights:

• China Mobile (China telecom operator) acquires 12% stake in Far Eastone(Taiwan telecom operator) for USD 533.4m
• Polybona (Chinese film publisher) raises USD 14.6m in its 2nd round financing from Sequoia Capital and two other US VC
• Och-Ziff (US asset management company) buys 7.37% stake in Vodone.com(Chinese online news video service provider) for USD 10.2m
• Kuoni (Swiss-based travel company) acquires 32% stake in Et-China (Chinese online travel service provider) for USD 8.78m
• Shanda (Chinese online game company) purchases 51% shares of Hurray!(Chinese wireless VAS provider) for USD 46.2m
• (Chinese B2B e-commerce company) invests USD 12m in UCWEB (Chinese mobile phone software technology provider)

Order your free copy here.

Our Next Event

We are planning our next event and it will be our first in Melbourne. We hope to be sending out the invitation very soon.

Professor Li is Director of Research at the John L. Thornton China Center, an initiative of the Brookings Institution. He is also a director of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and focuses on the transformation of political leaders, generational change and technological development in China. Professor Li is visiting Australia for the week of the

13th of July.

Dr Pradeep Taneja s current research interests focus on the relationship between politics and business in China, the political implications of Chinas energy security policy and the rise of China as a regional and global power.

DATE: Thursday, 16 July 2009

TIME: 5.45pm for 6.15pm  7.15pm

VENUE: PricewaterhouseCoopers Sydney, 205 Sussex Street, Sydney

ENQUIRIES: Please contact Ken Lee at k.lee@asialink.unimelb.edu.au or call

03 8344 3583.

REGISTRATION: Please register via the Asialink website at

www.asialink.unimelb.edu.au

The most important lesson learnt from the workshops in relation to Asia Digital Update is the idea of Low and High Context in communication. That in the west we prefer high context where the communication is direct, explicit and we spell our message out. In Asia, however, high context means that the communication is indirect, implicit and we need to deliver our message by other means.

This idea of supporting both low and high context has some direct applications to the Asia Digital Events and the way they are run and some changes will be introduced in our next event to reflect these leanings which should be announced very soon.


Business Directory

We are extremely excited to have just launched the first trial of our Business Directory. If your organisation works in Asia or is looking to work in Asia we invite you to join. We have some interesting plans for the directory in the coming months.

Presentation Partners

Finally we are on the hunt for some presentation partners to work with us over the next twelve months. If your company could benefit from positioning itself with our audience and our members across Asia please contact us.

Sincere Thanks
Scott and the Asia Digital Update team

4:06:04 PM: Dr Margret Byrne is introducing the second day and we are on our way

4:32:27 PM: speaking to someone else is like climbing a tree that climbs back; communicating is complicated, even within the same language

4:40:13 PM: in conversation; u may not be able to meet the other persons expectation but its important to know what the expectations are

5:05:40 PM: interesting discussion, developing cultural script for “battler” and the different interpretations

5:05:40 PM: interesting discussion, developing cultural script for “battler” and the different interpretations

10:14:44 AM: cross cultural brainstorming begins with building a frame of good working relations, even ahead of any brainstorming

10:17:21 AM: examining dimensions of cultural variation from the GLOBE Study

11:18:44 AM: impression management; we all want to create an impression of ourselves but across cultures this needs to be modified to suit diff audiences

11:33:10 AM: targeting your message by culture is okay but you must maintain the facts, simply position them differently

11:40:16 AM: all cultures want ethical leaders

12:45:51 PM: so many ways to say no across cultures with out the word no being used, listen for signals, diversions, avoidance of answer

1:08:50 PM: hybrid culture: create a team charter or micro culture with in the project team across cultures

2:18:59 PM: the higher up in the business hierarchy you get, the more you are paid to solve problems

2:23:32 PM: decision making and problem solving meetings are a better use of time that meetings about information, there are better ways to share info

4:11:47 PM: with rapport building and rules set up front a project moves much quicker even across cultures, invest in kick off and team building 2 begin

4:56:16 PM: End of day two, everyone is tired and we have had a great time, and learned so much. Thanks for following.

3:18:09 PM: We will join Dr Margaret Byrne for our live blog from 9AM Sydney time, you can watch on the site http://bit.ly/7yai1 or on twitter

4:05:48 PM: @MissHoolia introducing the day and introducing Margaret Byrne

4:07:32 PM: Commencing cultural intelligence for leaders in the 21st century

4:11:45 PM: opening the curtains, natural light helps to keep a team energised over two days

4:15:25 PM: you cant generate creative responses to complex cross cultural situations with out insight based on knowledge

4:16:45 PM: motivation + insight + skills = more productive interactions leading to better quality outcomes

4:21:40 PM: motivation: all of us have bias toward our own group, and this is right, however if we all think we are perfect this is a problem

4:22:45 PM: motivation: within our self esteem we must have room for change whilst maintaining a reasonable ego

4:27:16 PM: growing up and largely feeling good about our cultural group means its difficult to work cross cultures by nature

4:31:17 PM: every culture is as great as ours; this is not cultural intelligence, the professional challenge is very different

4:35:08 PM: we have to manage our biases and not suggest that we have no bias at all

4:38:26 PM: we will never have enough knowledge to fully and deeply understand all the worlds cultures, but we can develop skills to adapt

4:48:06 PM: cultures are learned, shared, patterned, changing, holistic, you aren’t born with a culture, and culture changes slowly

4:51:25 PM: the skill of observation is critical, noticing ourselves and noticing others, moving closer to or further from our goal in interactions

4:55:05 PM: generalising: open to learn, map only versus stereotyping: not open to change, fixed, territory

5:21:50 PM: looking at the Hoftede’s Rankings across countries, interesting Australia rates 90 on individualism versus most countries collectivism

5:23:00 PM: all english speaking countries cluster on the individualist end of the scale

5:23:45 PM: Australia is an “I” based culture

5:25:57 PM: highly collectivist cultures are “we” based, interesting Aboriginal culture is highly “we”based, immediate clash against AU “I” culture?

6:03:18 PM: managing individualist: focus on individual goals and kpi’s, value triggers, welcome initiatives, individual rewards

6:06:49 PM: managing collectivists: team based goals and benefits, be conscious of your leadership requirements, pay attention to team feelings

6:12:53 PM: it is possible for individualist cultures to form collectives in a work environment, more on this tomorrow

7:03:09 PM: 96% of Australians wouldn’t help boss paint house versus only 28% china, interpretive results

7:07:09 PM: anthropologists call Australia a super-egalitarian culture/society

7:15:56 PM: think about the cultural explanation of …ie and ….o in Aus, example davo and veggie

7:31:46 PM: most corporations dont understand the advantage of hiring an employee that has OS experience

8:25:41 PM: Question for the twiter-sphere, why do Australians put an O and I on words, davo, Vegi? Answer later today, what do you think?

8:26:57 PM: RT @asiadigitalau: Question for the twiter-sphere, why do Australians put an O and I on words, davo, Vegi? Answer later what do u think?

9:05:18 PM: discussing universalism and the need for procedures to respond to issues versus particularism and relationships to resolve

9:26:46 PM: complementary schismogenesis : two people compliment each other to create a communication breakdown

9:34:16 PM: key take out word; adjustment, how can we adjust our approach to solve issues

9:46:49 PM: communication preferences = tip of the ice berg, values are important below the water

10:43:18 PM: discovering the rational linear style of australian information in writing and presenting

10:45:09 PM: interesting to look at where the point is put in communication and how the point is led up to

11:06:59 PM: in AU if you find it difficult to get a turn to speak in meetings this will become a serious handicap

11:14:02 PM: north and south east asian in meeting pause between speakers and often have trouble getting a say in an AU meeting

11:30:58 PM: back channeling is important for communicating men to women, acknowledgment and the style is highly collaborative

11:45:32 PM: working across cultures there are always ideas which become stumbling blocks

11:48:47 PM: there are a range of core basic words that translate across cultures which can be used as building blocks

12:06:19 AM: writing cultural scripts to assist in explaining difficult terms

12:20:23 AM: big wow, cultural scripts are incredible, turn complex terms into basic explanations http://bit.ly/ST8YR

12:27:34 AM: why australians convert words with I and O etc on the end, like Davo? Linguists say this is anti-intelligence

12:28:53 AM: Day One has wrapped up on Cross Cultural Management, back for day two tomorrow at 9AM Sydney Time

Dr Margaret Byrne

We are pleased to offer our followers unique access to a world leader in Cross Cultural Management, Dr Margaret Byrne, Principal UGM Consulting. On Thursday and Friday June 26 and 27 we will be live blogging from her workshop for the Asialink Leaders Program in Sydney.

Margaret has a BA and MA from Oxford, and postgraduate qualifications in adult learning from Bristol. Last year, she completed her PhD, exploring how leadership potential is identified in meetings. Her research explored the different evaluations of women and men’s potential for an executive role. Margaret holds three awards for innovation in learning design. Career highlights include securing $1 million sponsorship for her research, getting three of her films broadcast on SBS and winning a contract with the PRC Government in Beijing. Margaret is known for the way she balances intellectual rigour with a passion for practical outcomes that make a difference to leaders and their organisations. In 2004, Wollongong University appointed her Honorary Advisor on Leadership. Outside of Australia, Margaret has worked and consulted in China, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Singapore, UK, New Zealand, France and Italy, as well as in four Pacific nations. She has a twenty year commitment to issues of diversity, culture and leadership, with her research being highlighted most recently by both BRW and AFR.

You will be able to follow the feed live in several ways:

• Here on the Asia Digital Update Live Blog pages where the live feed will be shown or;
• on Twitter simply follow @asiadigitalau for real time updates;
• or using TweetChat. the hashtag is #asiadigital

We are also working on securing her to answer some of your questions toward the end of each day.

If you would like to register for event reminders and updates please visit the site.

]]> http://asiadigitalaustralia.com/exclusive-live-blog-cross-cultural-management/2009/06/21/feed/ 0 http://asiadigitalaustralia.com/successful-launch-event/2009/06/17/ http://asiadigitalaustralia.com/successful-launch-event/2009/06/17/#comments Wed, 17 Jun 2009 07:13:40 +0000 Scott-Bradley Pearce http://asiadigitalupdate.com/?p=5

Event Welcome Team, Justine Marino and Stewart Sheargold

Thanks to incredible feedback from our launch participants the Asia Digital Update program has officially begun.

On a rather chilly evening the first Asia Digital Update event saw our team welcome a fantastic mix of government, academia and digital media practitioners come together to hear three fantastic speakers. First up was Damien Spry from Asialink who delivered a ‘pucha kucha’ style presentation (20 siides, 20 seconds each) and left us wondering if this should be the format for all of our speakers. Janelle Ledwidge from AIMIA Trade Start followed and we saw a great case study of an Australian small business delivering commercial success out of Asia. Then Brendan Harkin from XMEDIA Lab delivered thought provoking and challenging view of China.

However the real action was in the crowd. Some fantastic conversations were under way and the feedback from attendees has been excellent. A resounding call for the update series to continue.

So make sure that you join our mailing list for an invitation to the next event.

And if you missed out on attending the launch event make sure that you check out Brendan’s recommended blog and reading list.

But what can you do to help? Why not recommend that your colleagues join up and attend an event. Spread the word that Asia does matter in the digital industry.

See you all at the next one!