Ged Carroll

Category: indonesia | 印度尼西亞 | 인도네시아 공화국 | インドネシア

Halo dan selamat datang – welcome to the Indonesia category of this blog. This is where I share anything that relates to Indonesia, business issues relating to the Indonesia, the various people of Indonesia or its vibrant culture. Often posts that appear in this category will appear in other categories as well. So if instant noodle business Indofoods launched a new advertising campaign. And that I thought was particularly interesting or noteworthy, that might appear in branding as well as Indonesia.

So far, I haven’t had too much Indonesian related content here, though I recognise that it is a fast growing and important market in Asia. I am also aware of the positive impact that Indonesians have had around the world from the worlds of manufacturing to media and travel.

I don’t tend to comment on local politics because I don’t understand it that well, but I am interested when it intersects with business. An example of this would be legal issues affecting smartphone imports, versus local assembly.

The country has changed from being seen as risky to an emerging investment opportunity. The likes of Jardine Matheson have pivoted from Greater China to the worlds most populous Muslim country and home of the Komodo dragon. Its Dutch colonial heritage mixed with local culture has created a country full of dichotomies.

If there are Indonesian subjects that you think would fit with this blog, feel free to let me know by leaving a comment in the ‘Get in touch’ section of this blog here.

  • The South China Sea: The Struggle for Power in Asia by Bill Hayton

    In The South China Sea; Hayton sets an ambitious goal for himself to try and unpick the claims and counter claims on territory in the area. It is a massive convoluted story that encompasses colonial powers, oil companies and a plethora of Asian countries.

    In the end no one comes out of it with glowing colours. China is easy to paint as a villain and it has played to type. But other countries and major powers have made constant mis-steps and it has become an intractable problem. The more hawkish may see the inevitability of war with China.

    On the Chinese side, it makes sense for them to escalate a fight with one of their neighbours; as a Chinese idiom puts it ‘kill a chicken to scare the monkey’ and distract from the pain of change at home.  The history is wrapped up with rising nationalism and aspirations of China and its neighbours.

    From the American perspective, it makes sense to have the war with China further away from the Homeland, so the South China sea rather than the Pacific ocean.

    Hayton doesn’t take a standpoint one way or the other leaving the reader to decide.

    From a reading perspective, the tangled nature of the claims makes the book more difficult to read in small bursts. I tried reading it as a commuting book and it took a while to get it done.

    More book reviews here. More details on The South China Sea: The Struggle for Power in Asia

  • Montblanc + more things

    Montblanc

    Montblanc launches connected pen and paper | Luxury Daily – interesting move by Montblanc. The technology for connected pens similar to what Montblanc is doing has been around for a while. However it is interesting seeing a luxury brand like Montblanc enter the field. Montblanc has also done interesting things in wearables as well.

    Business

    Chinese Billionaire Linked to Giant Aluminum Stockpile in Mexican Desert – WSJ

    Culture

    A great documentary on the (little known in the UK) early 1990s US rave scene that blossomed on the west coast and gave us the likes of Hawke, The God Within aka Scott Hardkiss, Onionz and the like.

    Design

    The last day of hot metal press printing at the New York Times

    Media

    WeChat and Brands | WeChat Blog: Chatterbox – Caesars Entertainment and interesting concierge bot trial

    Evolving App Store Business Models – David Smith – move to ads from payments or subscription pricing

    Security

    Cisco’s Network Bugs Are Front and Center in Bankruptcy Fight – Bloomberg – and there is the opportunity for other vendors to get in

    Now for a more disturbing piece of technology, that my colleague Matt shared with me: OfferMoments looks like a privacy nightmare a la Minority Report. I found this a disturbing 90 seconds of viewing as marketing walks all over privacy in an unprompted very intrusive manner.

    Software

    Instagram lawyers tell owner of anti-litter app to change its name | The Guardian – interesting move, will this open the door for them to go after the likes of Telegram (messaging app) later on

    Wireless

    Un-carrier Network List of Firsts | TelecomTV Tracker – summary of T-Mobile US rollouts

    Apple Plug – neatly skewers the iPhone 7

  • Money out of China + more things

    So you want to get your money out of China? Cut out and keep edition | FT Alphaville – getting money out of China is notoriously difficult (paywall). More China related posts here.

    Big in Japan! Geomagnetic indoor positioning | Electronics EETimes – interesting deals by IndoorAtlas with Yahoo! Japan, SK Planet (Korean commerce service) and Baidu

    Ad Blockers and the Next Chapter of the Internet | HBR – retargeting blamed for the rise in ad blocking. Hopefully we’ll see advertising planning and targeting driven by marketing science rather than technological progress in the future. Article via Daniel Appelquist

    I, Cringely The FBI v. Apple isn’t at all the way you think it is – I, Cringely – interesting hypothesis

    Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo is now streaming on Pornhub | Dazed Digital – interesting channel to be used. Part of a wider ‘mainstreamisation’ of the platforms which has started with Diesel advertising on them

    Cisco Rolls 16nm ASICs | EE Times – interesting that Huawei is only 3.2% of data centre switches, I expect this to change over time; particularly in China and developing world countries

    Indonesia to Facebook, Google, and Twitter: Pay local taxes or we’ll block you – Last month Indonesian president Joko Widodo toured Silicon Valley and paid visits to the area’s tech giants. Now, it’s their turn to pay Indonesia something—namely, local taxes. – This could make the UK government’s settlement look foolish

    Scary Data – Trends in Malware, Phishing, Site Cleaning and Bad Networks – Wordfence – pretty damning data for Hong Kong Telecom in this analysis

    Technics Reveal Why The New SL-1200 Turntable Costs $4000 – Magnetic Magazine – destroying all that plant looks like an expensive mistake

    Why BlackBerry Is a Hit in Indonesia – Digits – WSJ – BBM 55m monthly active users, Facebook messenger & WhatsApp 50m MAUs, LINE 30m MAUs

    SFX Is Auctioning Off Beatport | HypeBot – not terribly surprising.

    Afternoonify – interesting search audit technology

  • Patent cliff + more things

    Pharma to lose $69 billion in five years as patents expire | Pharma File – patent cliff kicks in. Pharma has been buoyed historically by a run of blockbuster drugs. These drugs are coming off patent and there is a lack of obvious replacements. Secondly, investment in research is getting more and more expensive for pharma companies to stave off this patent cliff. Expect the pharma industry to try and go for intellectual property right extensions to try and stave off the patent cliff

    Laurence Fink Says Activist Investing Can ‘Destroy Jobs’ | New York Times – not terribly surprising but interesting that Black Rock has come out and said it

    Britain’s autumn statement: Two lost decades? | The Economist – at least since there is no compelling reason for things to improve (like with North Sea oil in the 1980s)

    Intelligence: Nike’s CIO Had to Get the Hell Out of Portland | Racked – surprised that Nike hadn’t managed to build a more urbane environment in Portland. I could see this as being a great case study for Who Is Your City author Richard Florida

    Intelligence: Gucci Cleans House: CEO, Creative Director Are OUT | Racked – not surprising given poor sales performance

    WhatsApp might be working on a web client | VentureBeat – me too feature to catch up with WeChat, expect QRCode hand-off

    Yahoo shuts offices in Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia | Campaign Asia – Malaysia I understand: closeness to Singapore, less of an economic power machine and a marketing sector that needs to work hard to keep up with legislation and local sensibilities. Indonesia and Vietnam are surprises given the high growth and populous markets that they represent

    Sony Lawyers Warn Press to Destroy Documents from Hack | Variety – this is tough one legally Sony as journalists are largely protected by the the US constitution

    Top 10 websites in the US according to Quantcast: A few observations | Chris Dixon – some interesting data points, you can still see the power of the IE installed user base and email looking at this data

    The Cheapest Generation – Atlantic Mobile – it assumes that will have the same amount to invest

    Silk Road subsidies undermine rail link | South China Morning Post – really interesting article about the nitty gritty of rail freight including lack of international common legal standards and requirements for paper work, insurance etc

    The Customer Journey to Online Purchase – Think with Google – really handy for media planning

    Sony hack: Studio Tries to Disrupt Downloads of its Stolen Files | Re/code – ethically dubious at best

    Xiaomi’s Indian expansion could be derailed by a patent tussle with Ericsson | Quartz – this is interesting as IP could put a speed bump on the new smartphone players for the time being, though this may decline in 5G as Huawei and ZTE get a bigger proportion of the IP in comparison to Alcatel-Lucent, Qualcomm, Samsung, Broadcom, Nokia, and Ericsson

    Russia tries again, in vain, to steady its collapsing currency | Quartz – it’s a buffet that the west hasn’t been invited and will end with a stronger China – having got hold of military and strategic industry IP, industrial assets and natural resources to drive further Chinese growth and strength

    Wal-Mart is the latest company to badly overestimate China | Quartz – there is a whole blog post in this story about growth, the nature of growth, management by Excel spreadsheets and a bit about China. Maybe I will have the time to write it one day

    EDMTCC 2014 – The EDM Guide: Technology, Culture, Curation – white paper trying to defend the bastard child of the dance music scene now that the Americans discovered it including Swedish House Mafia alumni (PDF)

  • The Raid 2

    Coming back to the UK reminded me of how much Hong Kong is a cinema-centric culture despite the technology, mobile devices and amazing restaurants. Going to the cinema there was literally half the price of London, which means that I am much more critical of the entertainment shown. The first film I have seen that was actually worth it’s ticket price since I have got back is The Raid 2.

    The Raid put the Indonesian martial arts scene on the map with a highly kinetic film that owed much of its visual intensity to computer games. You can see shades of vintage Bruce Lee films and the ‘gun fu’ popularised by John Woo in these films. Whilst there might be a Hong Kong influence, the Indonesian martial artists definitely carve out their own path. 

    The Raid 2 follows on just hours from the first film; but is an entirely different beast.  It is much more polished. The plot is even better developed. The acting has improved. But if you love the original film  you will still have plenty to keep you happy in The Raid 2. They have added to the original formula, rather than having taken anything away. As you can see from the trailer, there is still lashings of Indonesian-style kinetic action in the second film.

    But the film’s pace ebbs and flows in order to tell a more detailed story this time around, which feels very much like an early John Woo, pre-Hollywood. There is a nod to Quentin Tarantino with some of the gimmicky characters such as the Hammer Girl character. The plot is a similar structure to A Fistful Of Dollars. Our hero goes under cover to gain the trust of an organised crime family and ends up between two factions within the one criminal organisation bent on gaining power.