I had an opportunity last night to enjoy dinner with one of the VP's from my class and his family, at a local restaurant in Shanghai. It was a great experience enjoying the culture and having a chance to spend time with him in such a casual setting. My experiences at dinner only served to validate some of the points from my first posting on Shanghai.

First of all there were three children with us ages from 7 - 10 all of whom made a pretty enviable attempt to speak to me in English. They are learning English in school so they want to practice it! I have no doubt that this generation - the one that will be graduating from college over the next 10 years or so will have more English speaking Chinese than any previous one. The question for us is this - how many 8 year olds do you know that are learning to speak any language let alone Chinese?

Another interesting question was raised over dinner by the VP regarding the current health care debate going on in Washington ( another nice attribute is that they seem to know more about our current events than many Americans even do) His question was this - why do Americans want to defend and maintain a system that provides no export capability (I was confused and he explained)  In other words the insurance companies don't want reform but the insurance companies are a business that can only make money in America by charging Americans. They will never be able to add to the GDP by selling Insurance to other countries because other countries don't need it. Wow! Do you get what I get from that?

Regardless of where you stand on that debate do you notice the difference in mentality and thought process?  The Chinese are immediately thinking of the Global implications of business and that is the first consideration. They are all concerned with new business opportunities. They are not sitting back and waiting for business to come to them - they want to take it to the world!

Do you have a global plan for your business? Do you even have a five year strategic plan for your business?

Maybe we should all get used to seeing writing like this - 变动总不意味进展  但是进展总介入变动  and I will tell you what it means on the next post.