How did I get here? The American dream in China

How did you get to China? This, aside from "can you use chopsticks," is the most frequently asked question of a foreigner living in China. So, I think it is appropriate to answer this with my first post on this blog.

Huateng 1999 Chinese New Year Party (I'm circled in red, in the back)

In May of 1996, Shanghai Huateng Software Systems invited me to provide cross cultural training for their software engineers who were being sent to work in the US in droves. What was supposed to be 6 months has now turned into 9 years. Along the way, I moved into corporate communications for Huateng, helping to raise the profile of the company leading to a lot of VC money in 2000 at the at the height of the last Internet boom. I also initiated the spin-off of ChinaPay.com, an e-payment service provider (now partner with E-bay China). The Village Grouch, Steven Schwankert, wrote about us in glowing prose in February, 2000 (unfortunately, the e-payment quandry has yet to be solved in China...more on that another time). After heading up international business development, I left Huateng in 2003 to do my own thing.

"My own thing" has developed into CIC data. What started out as me and a couple of college Internet surfers doing Internet market intelligence research for a US client has turned into me and about 100 surfers doing market intelligence research for clients all over the world in 5 languages 7 days a week all hours of the day. We added some killer senior analysts as well with two of the original college kids, Violet and Robin (now graduates), becoming key members in our Word of Mouth research arm where we also have some very cool technology helping our growing roster of international clients make sense of the millions of Chinese BBS and Blog conversations happening every day in China.

Oh yeah...I also got married, bought a flat and have a cool dog named Elvis (after Costello, not Presley). Essentially, I moved to "red China," became a capitalist, and am living the American dream in the Shanghai suburbs. And I couldn't be happier.