Sam Flemming's China Thought Book

Sweet Home Alabama, bizarro Russian style

2008-04-05T16:25:00.007+08:00

I have heard many a version of Sweet Home Alabama all over the world. The one below with the Leningrad Cowboys + the Russian Red Army choir takes the cake (h/t to David Churbuck; let me know if you get a vid of "Sweet Home Clamabama").

I am using the screen shot instead of inserting the code because I just love this Russian Red Army dude jamming to Skynyrd. Click here to see the video.

New Scirocco to be launched.

2008-03-02T22:40:00.002+08:00

My old HS and college buddy Patrick Nelson sent me news of the new VW Scirocco.

I had a '85 Scirocco that looked just like this red one:

I like mine better. The new one looks a bit boxy to me, more like a GTI.

Went to the Zoo

2008-03-02T22:27:00.002+08:00

The real highlight of the Shanghai Zoo is not the animals (actually, this part is pretty depressing, especially the elephant show), but the fact it is a big open space and just a good excuse to be outside on one of the "springiest" days of the year so far.

Leo loves to walk now, especially if you let him hold your hand (actually, your finger).

Maybe his favorite thing was the fish tanks.

Here is running through the grassy area chasing bubbles:

Leo loves Thomas the Tank Engine

2008-02-23T15:32:00.004+08:00

Leo has turned into a huge Thomas the Tank Engine fan.

We take his Thomas case when we go out.

He plays with Thomas and Friends while eating.

He has about 20 of the different trains, and can name them all.

Here's a video showing some of his memory skills.

A Sunday at Gymboree and Family Dinner

2008-02-17T21:21:00.004+08:00

Today we went to Gymboree.

Then I cooked my favorite of mom's recipes, Chicken Spectacular with wild rice (she sent from the US).

At night, Xiao Ayi hosted a dinner for the family, and Leo had a blast.

Here he is kissing his cousin, Chenchen.

DIY on our Buick Minivan

2008-02-16T14:46:00.003+08:00

We got a Buick minivan recently. I view it as a bus...busing people for work and sometimes busing the family. It's a minivan...it's a Buick...it's not particularly exciting as far as cars go, but I'm certainly not complaining. It's very convenient vs. taxis.

I decided to peronslize it a bit with an Alabama Crimson Tide sticker. Of course, we also have the requisite window flag, but that will have to wait until football season ;)

Just for fun, here's a random pic of Leo with static in his hair.

Leo offers a cheers, speaks Spanish and eats the country side chicken

2008-02-13T20:58:00.004+08:00

At dinner tonight, Leo was in typical form.

First, he loves to "gambei" or "cheers" everyone. all. the. time.

Next, he showed of his Spanish counting ability. Other than forgetting about "tres," he does pretty good since I only started teaching him last week. He already can count in Mandarin and English. You can also here him say some Chinese like "Duzi e le."

Finally, the chicken from yesterday is now history and is contributing to various dishes, including this chicken soup.

bug fixes: RSS feed and archives fixed

2008-02-13T14:09:00.002+08:00

Thanks to Denis, my RSS feed is fixed. Should be easy for your feed reader to discover it by simply typing in samflemming.com.

Also, links to archives work.

Ayi comes back from country side with live chicken

2008-02-12T19:16:00.000+08:00

Our ayi (maid) came back from Chinese New Year vacation today with a live chicken. She did this at the request my wife and mother in law. This is China's version of "Free Range Chicken."

Lifestreaming and relaunching samflemming.com

2008-02-12T15:14:00.001+08:00

After over a year of dormancy, I am resurrecting samflemming.com as my personal blog. I am insanely busy, but I have felt a need to express myself about more personal things in my life which do not fit well on a company blog.

I used to use samflemming.com as my company blog, but in early 2007, I moved the blog to our company blog platform, seeisee. I will continue to blog about my company there. I am keeping my old CEO blog posts from samflemming.com up because they continue to get hits.

If you are interested, you can track my "life stream" through these channels:

Personal blog: This inlcudes my fun stuff about China/Shanghai, my son Leo, and thoughts about music.
CEO Blog: More "professional" thoughts about CIC, IWOM and web 2.0 in China
Twitter: microblogging, i.e. short snippets and thoughts. This is more personal and could be inanely boring
Flickr: Pics
Youtube: Video
LinkedIn: Resume
Facebook: I don't use this social network much except to track others in my circle
CIC: company website

I actually would like to set up a proper lifestream aggregrator (see more on this topic here), but Tumblr is blocked in China and I just hate the name profilactic. Until I find another service, the above list is where you can find me.

My blog is now on www.seeisee.com/sam

2007-02-12T19:39:00.000+08:00

Please go to http://www.seeisee.com/sam from now on. Look forward to seeing you there...

Please change your RSS feed for my blog

2007-01-19T00:11:00.000+08:00

Please note that I will be cease to publish new content on this URL very soon. Please go to the new url to see the new blog and grab the RSS feed.

Our new company blog launch and other changes

2007-01-18T23:48:00.000+08:00

I am excited to announce the launch of the CIC blog platform SeeISee. We have been working on this the last several months and we are thrilled to finally take it public. For over a year now, I have been blogging about Internet Word of Mouth (IWOM) in China on my blog www.samflemming.com. The truth is much of the content and insight on the blog came from the work of our incredible team of analysts who live and breathe blogs, BBS and everything related to net culture for our clients every single day.

It is only fitting that the team members have their own voice in their own language. SeeISee is the window into what I think really makes this company special: our people and our culture….our soul. It is the place you will really get to know us as a company. Most of the blog content on SeeISee will be in Chinese. I will move my blog to www.seeisee.com/sam, which will remain mostly English, with occasional summaries and highlights of SeeISee's Chinese content. You should change your RSS feed as I will not be updating articles on www.samflemming.com much longer.

The launch of our blog is not the only thing new here. We have also rebranded (thanks to great help from Vennie, our CFO, a former FutureBrand consultant). Summary of changes are here:

New logo: In the spirit of open source marketing, it was inspired by the designs submitted by our team members.
New name: we dropped the “data.” While we do consider our unique data to be a key competitive advantage, we believe that calling unsolicited consumer conversations filled with opinions, passion and insight “data” does not fully capture its humanness and richness. We also believe that the insights our analysts provide based on our data and data mining is what brings significant value to our clients.
New site: We have given our website a face lift. Check it out on www.cicdata.com.

We hope you are enjoy the blog and the changes.

Wishing you all the best in 2007!

CIC in a couple of Businessweek articles

2007-01-18T23:40:00.000+08:00

A sort of definition of the industry: China: User-Generated Content Takes Off

A few comments on IWOM and online video: Asia's Funniest Home Videos—from Intel

Tagged: 5 things you didn't know about me...

2006-12-25T19:25:00.000+08:00

There is a blog meme going around that I have been tagged to participate. I don't really use this blog to talk about myself so much, but I will give in to the greater powers of the MEME and share after Nathan Gilliatt tagged me.

I live in China, but I am from Alabama. This usually raises a few eyebrows and questions such as "How did someone from Alabama get to China?" or "I have never really been to Alabama, but drove through it once on my way to Florida" (a surprising number of Chinese tell me this). I don't have a noticeable southern accent, but I do love BBQ and appreciate a good "meat and 3."
I have been in two bands: one in Japan and one in China. In Japan, the band was "My Niece's Foot." We did mostly grunge influenced originals. I loved singing, but not everyone loved my singing. We "broke up" in 1994 when we all left (except for Brad, who stayed awhile to internationalize Ultraman and become a Zen master). In China, I was in Das Bund, and we played mostly Bowie, Radiohead and Suede covers. We practiced for 3 months, played 3 times over a 3 day weekend, and then called it quits after the bar owner asked us to quit playing with the drummer because the audience couldn't hold hear themselves talk.
I love Alabama football. Mike Shula should have been given more time to finish what he started. The program is really at a nadir (consider I grew up under the Bear) and it is painful for me to listen to the games (and I do sometimes get up at 3AM to listen via Yahoo radio). However, I still sometimes shed a tear when I describe van Tiffin's "the Kick" that beat Auburn in 1985 (yes, I was there) and will always bleed crimson.
I first came to China in 1996. I know there are many who have been here longer, but being here 10 years has given me an incredible experience watching the country, and the city of Shanghai, change at a most incredible pace. I lived through the first dot-com boom here in 1999, working at Chinapay.com (I registered the name in 1998) and Shanghai Huateng.
I have an amazing son named Leo. Ok, you probably know that from previous posts, but he is someone I love talking about. I am happy to share pics with anyone who asks!

Next up for tagging (you're it):

Silicon Hutong
Hardcore Zen
ImageThief
Wangjianshuo
ChinaLawBlog

Blog maintenance---funky characters ahead

2006-12-13T12:01:00.000+08:00

I am in the process of exporting this blog to another platform and this may cause the blog to have some funky characters or just overall look screwed up. Only temporary, and it is the first step of a new beginning.

More later...

Overview of International Social Media Monitoring

2006-12-10T20:34:00.000+08:00

Nathan Gilliatt over at Net-Savvy Executive blog has been writing a series of very interesting posts about social media monitoring firms and approaches available outside of the US. An overview of the topic can be found here. His post inspired a page on New PR wiki which includes a nice overview of the topic as well as a comprehensive list of non-American companies that was originally started by Jeremiah Owyang's post here.

Companies Nathan has covered (so far) are:

Good stuff...check Nathan's blog out.

Moderating comments

2006-12-10T20:33:00.000+08:00

I will be moderating comments for the time being until I can figure out how to minimize the spam comments that have been increasing at an alarming rate recently. I promise pretty quick turnaround.

Speaking about IWOM at IQPC Digital Marketing Communication China 2006

2006-11-26T22:02:00.000+08:00

I will be holding a workshop as well as presenting on the topic "Utilizing Internet Word of Mouth (IWOM) for consumer insight" at the Digital Marketing Communication Conference in Shanghai. The workshop will be on Tuesday, November 28th. The presentation will be Wednesday, November 29th. You won't see my name on the website because it has not been updated. To see latest agenda, click here (PDF).

Speaking at MobileMonday Shanghai

2006-11-11T09:23:00.000+08:00

I will be speaking at MobileMonday Shanghai on a panel covering "Mobile User Generated Content – The Chinese Way." To read more and to register (mandatory) go here.

Chinese Blogs, BBS and the Automobile Industry, Part 1: I-WOM Channels

2006-10-31T12:11:00.000+08:00

In the past two years, CIC data has been developing the technology and the expertise to help companies in China track conversations on BBS and blogs. We call the space we are in I-WOM: Internet Word of Mouth. Most recently, we have been focused on developing specific industry practices. One of those practices is automobile.

Over the course of 3 or 4 blog posts, I will outline the I-WOM landscape for automobiles in China as we see it and how we think brands can benefit from systematically tracking I-WOM.

First up: I-WOM channels. I-WOM channels are the tools, sites, forums where consumers share their opinions about brands, products, and services. There are many, but the three I will focus on here are blogs, video and BBS.

Blogs

Industry executives, journalists, fans and self proclaimed experts have found a voice in the Chinese blogosphere, primarily on blog channels on portals such as on Sina and Sohu and blog portals like Bokee.

These blogs vary in popularity and frequency of writing. As an example, Moyan Qingfen (莫言清风) Blog is written by an auto industry executive averaging about 1-2 articles a day about the industry, with some articles getting upwards of 50 comments.

Weblogs, Inc has a Chinese version of its Autoblog on Autoblog.cn. However, it is mostly translation of the English content, with relatively little China related content.

Importance of blogs for brands: Auto blogs are important to monitor as they provide a new media channel for industry insiders and participants which can influence professionals, and to some degree, consumers who follow the industry. In our opinion, however, they are not a representative consumer media as much as BBS is.

Video

Sites like Toodou and 6 rooms are making video a regular part of the Internet experience. For automobiles, the main source of activity is the sharing of some television shows or news reports. For example, here is a TV report analyzing the different customer types at gas stations. Here is a consumer video of an off road driving contest. Interesting stuff, but not especially mind blowing for brands.

Ultimately, the impact of video sites is not so much that they offer the venue for consumers to upload their own videos (though more of that will eventually happen), but more that they serve as an "always on" channel to spread "official" videos that consumers may not have seen when they were on TV or maybe even unavailable in China. For example, Tiida's "Sex and the City" series of TVCs shown outside of China (see below) are very racy, and might appeal to some Chinese, especially to those hipsters who download the show on BT sites in China (and there are many of these). Why shouldn't Nissan or its agency upload these to Toodou?

Importance of Video for brands: Video sites should be monitored for the chance that a consumer puts up a very crisis inducing video, however, their greatest impact could be in making additional and compelling content more available.

BBS

By far, we see BBS as the most influential I-WOM channel in China. BBS is where car fans, car owners and potential owners share their love, knowledge adn problems about cars.

Xcar Ford Focus Forum

Let's look at some of the numbers for our automobile BBS practice we collected in September from the top automobile BBS sites in China

CIC Collected Automobile BBS Posts for September

Number of messages collected: 3,826,853
Number of unique posters: 93,720
Average number of posts per day: 127,561

What does this mean? We have 3,826,853 comments written by 93,720 consumers for the month of September. These are the consumers who are already own cars or are thinking about buying cars and/or are actively discussing cars right now.

What are they talking about? More details on this in a later post, but here is a taste of one popular make/model they are talking about in September:

Number of messages mentioning Ford: 70,674
Number of messages mentioning Focus: 53,042

Diving deeper into the Ford Focus (one of the more popular models in China for its class) indicates just how impressive the message volume for BBS in China is. For example, looking at the Ford Focus forum on Xcar, we find over 300 messages per day with new replies. For all of our collected data for Focus, we see an average of 94 new threads per day with an average of 1541 comments to threads per day.

Importance of BBS for brands: We believe that the sheer volume of conversations about automobiles on BBS makes this channel a "must" for tracking. BBS is filled with consumers in discussions with other consumers about their experiences and opinions about owning and buying cars. Exactly what and why can and should brands be tracking? That will be the subject of upcoming posts.

CIC is growing: needs more people and space

2006-10-16T11:55:00.000+08:00

As they say in my native Alabama, CIC is growing "like all get out." As a result, we need people and space.

People: we are looking for both social media analyst and technology positions. In all cases, ability to read and write Chinese is a must. For now, positions are for Shanghai only. JD's are located here (Chinese) and English (here).

Space: we are looking for cool, warehouse type space towards the end of this year. Any recommendations would be very appreciated.

Media update: CIC in Amcham mag and Media

2006-10-16T11:41:00.000+08:00

Recent mentions:

I comment on MySpace's imminent arrival in China here.

Danwei, CIC and Imagethief among others quoted in an Shanghai Amcham mag piece on blogging here (PDF).

Even pirates need branding

2006-09-27T20:00:00.000+08:00

Open Source Marketing is a fancy "web 2.0" term describing interactive campaigns that invite the millions of consumers online to contribute ideas and/or content to a campaign or promotion. It is quite the buzz word with marketing types and many of the big brands have launched campaigns in 2006.

Here are some examples from China:

Pepsi Creative Challenge: submit script idea for the next Jay Zhou TVC
Nike Just Do It: submit video demonstrating your passion for a sport
TCL: write a script for the next Zhang Liangying TVC
Ponds: select next spokesperson

There is another Chinese company, which, if you live in China and partake in the occasional purchase or at least browsing of pirated DVD's, you may recognize. The company is called KIRIN (麒麟) (no relation to the Japanese beverage brand). Little did you know that actually KIRIN launched its own open source marketing campaign in 2005. Yes, they had the vision of open source marketing before almost any big brand in China, if not the world.

Here are the deets taken from an introduction of the contest which can be found on a DVD collectors BBS here:

KIRIN (nicknamed “QL”) decided to collect logo design since so many DVD fans said the logo of QL was so ugly. The winner will be awarded 50 QL DVDs. You can release your design on this post or e-mail to QL’s official mailbox

Here's the original "ugly" design:

Here's one contest submission:

Here's another submission:

Here's the winner:

Compare the winner to the original:

The lessons here? Well besides realizing that pirates need branding too, we can see that every industry, no matter how big or small, can have fans talking online and can be leveraged to help create your brand (it is THEIR brand, anyway).

Net stars featured in AdAge China

2006-09-22T09:18:00.000+08:00

AdAge China did a piece on net stars and brands. See the full article here (PDF). You can also purchase the article yourself or year's subscription on the site. (hopefully this plug will make them less angry about posting the article here).

See related articles:

Net stars dominate Chinese web searches
China 'net stars commercial trend continues