China Business community, II

The results are in! We asked which is your Favorite China Business community? Without further ado, here are the results:

LinkedIn: 35%
XING: 14%
Facebook: 14%
F&B and Fashion business1: 7%
KLM Club China1: 7%
Lenovo1: 6%
Globe Forum Business Network1: 5%
Guanxi1: 4%
China dialogue1: 2%
Tianji1: 3%
Hello World1: 1%
Language1: 1%

1 = Added by a guest

Now I know KLM Club China, we have quite some friends there, but what is F&B and Fashion business? Globe Forum Business Network was new to me as well, I signed up and I must say it looks quite nice! Will do an update on what that does to our on-going Chinese Networking endeavor soon.

That’s it for now, oh and BTW, China Law Blog added us to their Blogroll, do check their site out on http://www.chinalawblog.com/2007/12/china_sucess_stories_new_blogr.html , it is excellent!

M

PS If XING and LinkedIn is your thing, look me up: find a direct link in the menu on the right.

China Business Blog goes LinkedIn

Dear China friends,

You are most welcome to join our (as in: www.chinasuccessstories.com) China Business group on LinkedIn! I'm positive you will benefit from it, being able to get into contact with other China Business minded professionals like yourself. Please visit http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/36656/50377703F693 for details.

M
(I am assuming you've subscribed to our newsletter on doing business in China on www.chinasuccessstories.com already. If you haven't, you should do so before requesting to join the China Business group on LinkedIn).

China friend finder?

Back in the day 'how to win friends and influence people' was a breakthrough bestseller. A great book. I read it: you should read it too. 'Winning friends' as an art. Or at least as a technique. BUT a sincere one. Not as a gimmick or trick.

Fast forward a few decades, and you discover the teachings of Dale Carnegie still make a lot of sense. One big difference though is that the term 'friend' is not what it used to be. And I'm to blame for that too. Why? Because I like to meet interesting China oriented business men and women, or other sorts of China entrepreneurs, I have this Twitter account (http://twitter.com/fishinchina). And I like to meet people. Or see what it is they are up to. But whenever I want to stay updated on somebody's thoughts on China or their whereabouts in China, and I click 'Add', they all of the sudden are 'friends'.

Don't get me wrong. I love having friends. As many as possible. Probably that is why I actually do have some friends. Five or six. Real friends that is. Mainly Dutch, not Chinese (yet?). On Twitter though it takes me 1 second to make friends with a joint China focus. I have 'won' 70 friends in one week. Forget Dale Carnegie! This is way easier.

My concern? I suspect my China Twitter friends aren't real friends. They are real people though. And some of them are Chinese. But friends? Actually I hope they aren't, because I would hate to let all of them down by not attending their birthday parties, weddings, funerals, baby showers, etc. And to reverse that: I'm pretty sure they are not waiting for me to show up on these events either. Neither here, or in China.

I can only hope we stay friends for as long as we mutually benefit from our Twitter friendship, and stick to what it was that made us friends in the first place. And if any of my China Twitter 'contacts', 'links', 'connections', really wants to become real friends, I really do look forward to that. And I promise, I will visit you – at least once a year – in China! Deal?

M