Hello.

I’m pleased to let you know we’ve redesigned our Language of Business web site, now accessible at www.bclob.com

The new site is meant to serve as a business portal: we have included business knowledge resources, web site & book recommendations, and, of course, background on my BC courses and our TV, radio and print media outreach.

Finally, please register on the site, so as new content is posted, you’ll receive an email from us.

A huge thanks to my colleagues inside and outside of BC who did the programming, offered suggestions and have supported this overall 2+ year effort.  To say it’s a team efforts would be the understatement of the decade! :-)

Sincerely,

Greg Stoller

Communicating well in business is tough, and the subtlest mistakes can immediately derail even the best deals. Whether getting your intended point across is a born talent, or learned over time, all executives can improve—including the most senior ones—if they’re truly willing to be critiqued.  How to effectively communicate, on the next Language of Business.

We debuted our new set today and check out the pictures below.  Filming will occur over the next three weeks and click on the guests' names below for their LinkedIn profiles or company web sites. This episode will air in late March / early April.

Melanie Calzetti-Spahr, who will discuss how to mentor and prep younger employees in the workplace. 

Bill Kenney has begun a new company, Test My Pitch, which provides detailed feedback on presentations. Here's his profile.

Brenda Bence, joining us from Skype in Singapore, will discuss high-level executive leadership / coaching. Here's her profile.

Marjorie Whittaker, who will discuss business communication / training for non-native English speakers. This is her LinkedIn profile.

Dr. Camille Baulant spending this week in Boston and we interviewed her in a special additional segment on the French economy.  This is her LinkedIn profile.

This is some new, exciting research coming out of France, by Dr. Camille Baulant and Dr. Serge Blondel, both of whom will in Boston, in March.  It's a French article but here's the English abstract below.

Croatia joins European Union in 2012: How can Croatia export efficiently in the Global Market?

The main aim of the article is to analyse how Croatia inserts in the world economy. As the world economy changes, the insertion strategy needs to change also. The country can’t any more choose an insertion based on export markets as well as choose an insertion based on internal economy. Nowadays, we know well the limits of the strategy of growth only based on export markets. The paper presents the three main points of the growth strategy of Croatia: tourism exports, industry specialisation and the key role of FDI to finance its growth. On the opposite side, Croatia must be careful because its industrial exports are still highly dependant of price-competitiveness and the high exchange rate policy could damage its exports.

We are here in Beijing, after (fortunately) an uneventful day.

a) All of the connections were smooth, and with the exception of the tug getting stuck in the ice on Newark's tarmac.  All luggage arrived, too.
b) My client came to the airport and we're now safely in the hotel.
c) Just had a great dinner with the students at a local restaurant. $12 / person, including drinks
d) On a lighter note, we saw Dennis Rodman in the Beijing airport, most likely in transit from a recent trip to Pyongyang to train the basketball team.


Slow Internet but I'll try to post as often as I can. We're off to work tomorrow. 

Our two Asian International Consulting Project teams have just sent their reports off to China, capping off six months of intensive consulting for the clients of our partner CCAFM.  We'll be headed to Beijing in two weeks to further refine our work with CCAFM's consultants, and then formally present it to to their clients.  More information is available on this course's web site, and here is the Radio Entrepreneurs interview link which aired earlier tonight about the experience.  We're honored that this is our 10th year working with CCAFM!  Congratulations to our BC MBA and LAW students on a stellar job from start to finish.

Here's an Op-Ed piece from the Boston Business Journal on global commerce. "Think global, act local" is the objective, but sometimes things don't work out as planned...

Cliché or not, he—or she—who has the money...usually gets to make the rules.  Except...when things don’t go as planned. Venture Capital, Private Equity, Bank Loans, Credit Card Bootstrapping...as you acquire funding for your business, your obligations go up faster than your cash flow. If you don't keep up your end of the bargain, you won't be getting any sympathy, no matter what the excuse is. 

Episode #8 (Investing and Cash Flow) is now on-the-air. The full 30-minute episode is here, featuring Don Nelson, Aaron Cai, Ben Littauer and Dan Weller. Click on their names below for the individual interview segments.

Continuous business improvement for start-ups, and established ventures: The Language of Business.

To facilitate viewing in mainland China, please use the link below:
Full Episode #8, non-YouTube version

Don Nelson

Donald Nelson is a co-founder and Managing Director of Harken Capital. Previously, Don founded NelCap Advisers in 2007, and spent nearly a decade with SV Life Sciences. He initially served as an investment professional and CFO, and was then promoted to Head of Fundraising and Fund Strategy. Don was responsible for raising SV Life Sciences Funds III and IV, which constitute nearly $1.0 billion of the $1.6 billion of private capital under management by SV Life Sciences.  His company's web site is here. 


Aaron Cai

Aaron Cai is a seasoned professional with experience in technology and investment research, global value chain development, and process improvement and control.  He has worked in Utilities, Electrical/Electronics products, and Investment Management industries and his goal is to combine operations and investment management experiences and his specialties are in Capital Goods, Fundamental Analysis, Global Sourcing, Process Improvement, Program Management; Research, analyze, identify and manage Global, Technological Investment Opportunities, Financial Statement Analysis and Modeling. His LinkedIn profile is here.

To facilitate viewing in mainland China, please use the link below:
Aaron Cai interview, non-YouTube version

Ben Littauer

Ben Littauer is an angel investor with expertise in Internet and communications technologies, as well as healthcare IT.  Currently an active member of Boston Harbor Angels and Walnut Venture Associates with investments in a wide variety of startups, he sits on the boards of two portfolio companies. He is a mentor for Mass Challenge and The Capital Network, and is on the advisory board at TCN. Mr. Littauer is a judge for Mass Challenge, MITX Innovation Awards, and various academic competitions.  Mr. Littauer was Technology Strategist for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, where he defined the architecture for PatientSite, allowing patients to communicate securely with their healthcare team and view their own medical records.  He was a consultant to the Massachusetts Health Data Consortium on healthcare data security projects.  His profile is on this link. 


Dan Weller

The Weller family has been in carpeting for three generations. Mike Weller spent many years in Boston, working for Warren Allen, a carpet distributor in New England. Mike's son, Bob Weller decided to carry on the carpeting tradition and in 1954; he started Robert Weller Corporation, a carpet conversion factory located on A Street in South Boston. Bob would purchase carpet remnants from the various carpet mills and convert these remnants into first quality area rugs. To this day, we are one of the last of our breed in the northeast, supplying much of New England with the highest quality area rugs.  

In 1999 Bob's son Dan joined the company and is now the acting president. The company has enjoyed steady growth in our wholesale division and astonishing growth from our retail division. In 2000, Weller Carpets was faced with a decision - with the continued restructuring of the South Boston Waterfront, Weller Carpets would be forced to relocate. After a long search, we first resettled in Avon, MA, and then finally here in Norwood, MA.. Here's his company's web site.

Congrats to the school here for a great international week. Over 140 students from France, Germany, Poland, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Colombia, Russia and China. Nice mention of BC in second to last paragraph, too (in bold type).

Greg


Du 7 au 11 octobre, l'UFR de droit, économie et gestion (DEG) ainsi que l'UFR d'ingénierie, du tourisme, du bâtiment et des services (ITBS) organisent pour la première fois conjointement une semaine internationale "France-Asie".

Près de 145 étudiants français, 10 étudiants polonais double diplôme, 5 étudiantes russes double diplôme, 8 Indiens et 11 Indonésiens formeront des groupes multiculturels, mélangeant les nationalités et les composantes de l'université, pour travailler sur le management interculturel, avec un focus particulier cette année sur l’Asie. Finance, marketing, ressources humaines, tourisme... chaque groupe choisira un thème à développer et soutiendra son travail à la fin de la semaine. "Travailler en groupe, même entre Français, peut parfois être difficile, note Catherine Crapsky, enseignante de gestion, responsable de la mention Management International. L’ITBS et DEG ont une approche complémentaire. Les étudiants vont s’enrichir mutuellement."

Plusieurs conférences prévues Ils devront également prendre en compte les différences culturelles au sein de leurs groupes de travail. "Les problèmes interculturels peuvent gêner le développement d'une entreprise" poursuit Catherine Crapsky. Ils ne sont pas seulement liés au simple fait de parler une autre langue. La manière de penser, d’agir et d’entretenir des relations peuvent également être source de méconnaissance. "Lors d’une négociation, les différences culturelles peuvent à elles seules compromettre la signature d’un accord" développe Gerold Beyer, enseignant d'allemand et responsable des relations internationales à l'ITBS. Plusieurs professionnels et enseignants gèreront les différents groupes de travail. Parallèlement, plusieurs conférences en anglais, ouvertes à tous sur le management interculturel, seront données par Gregory Stoller, professeur invité du Boston College et par Gerold Beyer. Les étudiants seront ainsi amenés à mieux appréhender le monde dans lequel ils évoluent et les interactions internationales. Les retours sont positifs. "Les années précédentes, les étudiants ont réellement apprécié le dispositif, assure Dominique Peyrat-Guillard, Vice-Doyen de l’UFR DEG, en charge des relations internationales.Ils ont vécu une expérience différente et ont appris à mieux se connaitre."

Une découverte mutuelle Durant la semaine, les étudiants indiens et indonésiens  vont découvrir la ville d'Angers et ses environs par le biais de plusieurs visites culturelles. Une course d'orientation pour l’ensemble des étudiants est également prévue lundi après-midiafin de renforcer leur esprit d’équipe. Enfin, pour clôturer cette troisième semaine internationale, les prix de la course d’orientation seront remis aux meilleures équipes et un repas de clôture, pour lequel chaque participant étranger et français préparera un plat typique de son pays, sera organisé.

After two visits to China, I wanted to share a few experiences and some lessons learned for anyone planning to conduct business there. Overall, what will help during a visit is to spend a lot of time socializing with one’s business counterparts or partners, to visit China’s vast historical monuments and to briefly familiarize oneself with the country's extensive history and culture.

Before I went on my two trips to China, I undertook research on the People's Republic. I researched the country, the people and its rich history. The Chinese are very proud of their heritage and love to talk about it; watching a couple of movies about China such as Empire of the Sun or The Last Emperor was one of the ways I educated myself. When on the ground, I displayed visible interest in the different sites, the history, had a list of a few places that I planned to visit and even referenced a few other places that I could not visit during that excursion-- such as The Terracotta Army in Xi’an-- but planned to come back and see another time. My advice is to become familiar with China and its country and, when on the ground, talk about and show respect. The Chinese talk about their national treasures with such pride and fervor that I have not seen anywhere else. In addition, some of their sites such as The Great Wall of China and the historic Bund in Shanghai are simply mesmerizing.

In addition to seeing China’s sites, I spent extensive face time with the consulting firm I was working with--including many elaborate dinners--and learnt the importance of drinking the Baijiu (a Chinese white wine consumed at dinner on special occasions). Had I not consumed the Baijiu, it would have been considered an insult and damaged the relationship. I was also able to develop a stronger relationship with the management of the firm I was working with by asking about their families and even seeing some of their wedding photos (something the Chinese love to show). Another lesson I learned was the importance of doing karaoke with my business partners. As China can be a very conformist society, one of the sole avenues available for release is through karaoke. Allowing them to relax a little will go a long way in developing a strong business rapport. My advice is to spend face time with your consulting partners or potential clients outside of work and even ask about their personal lives--it can help to seal or strengthen any potential deal.

A couple of other tips for success in China: make sure your business cards are translated into either Mandarin or Cantonese (different character sets); when giving or receiving business cards, remember to use both hands; respect seniority in China (it’s all about saving face and senior management will be insulted if they do not lead conversations, and their rank is not respected); avoid the number 4 as it is considered unlucky (use 3 or 5 bullets on a PowerPoint slide); 8 is considered auspicious; and finally, avoid discussing certain sensitive topics such as Tibet and the Tiananmen Square incidnet. Overall, these tips will help to make your visit to China more successful.

Sources:

Stoller, Greg. “Doing Business in China.” File last modified 20 October 2010. Microsoft Powerpoint file.

Two personal visits to China in 2010 and 2011.

Ever wonder if the casino machines in Vegas are fair?  Mike Dreitzer answers that question daily.  He's the Chief Operating Officer of BMM, a gaming products certification lab and was on Radio Entrepreneurs today discussing gaming industry trends.  His LinkedIn profile is here and this is the interview link. He is also a past Business Pan course sponsor.

The second segment is on my upcoming trip to teach overseas and is here.