Ged Carroll

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  • China Inc. – The 800-pound dragon in the room

    The New York Times has a great review of China Inc. by Ted C. Fishman which highlights the growing economic might of China. Some interesting facts and figures featured in the review of the book include:

    • From 1982 through 2002, the United States economy grew at an annual rate of 3.3 percent. China’s economy grew at an annual rate of 9.5 percent,
    • In 2003 China bought 7 percent of the world’s oil, a quarter of its aluminum and steel, almost a third of its iron ore and coal, and 40 percent of its cement.
    • China makes 40 percent of all furniture sold in the United States
    • China has 3,000 Christmas-decoration factories which exported more than $900 million tree trimmings and plastic Santas in the first 10 months of 2003.
    • China still only makes one-twentieth of everything produced in the world
    • China can rely on a vast low-wage army, working for an average of 40 cents an hour, that can turn out consumer goods of every description
    • American and Japanese companies spend $1 billion to $2 billion to develop a new car
    • New super-cities like Shenzhen, a fishing town of 70,000 20 years ago that now has 7 million people, making it larger than Los Angeles or Paris, swelled by migrants from the countryside looking for a better life in the city
    • Up to 300 million Chinese have migrated from the country to the city over the past 20 years
    • The Asian Brown Cloud, a wind-borne industrial smog that originates on China’s east coast, can be seen in California as it rides the jet stream
    • China has seven of the world’s ten most polluted cities


    The book also provides some insights into the differences between the rise of China and Japan. Unlike Japan, China Inc. is driven by local enterprises rather than the central analysis and planning carried out by Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) [now known as the Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry] to find key markets to conquer. There is a certain irony in the socialist state using the brutal darwinism of the marketplace in a way that Adam Smith would have appreciated.

    Current reading at chez Renaissance Chambara:

     

  • The Layer Cake by JJ Connolly

    The Layer Cake is a hard bitten crime novel of 90’s underworld London that the movie was based on. However the book is worth reading because the plot is similar but different to the film.

    I won’t go into too much depth because that would spoil it for you, but suffice to say its a great read. The book doesn’t have the slick quality of the film, primarily because it has more depth.

    From the thought that has gone into it, one may wonder as to how J.J. Connolly got his knowledge. Having worked and lived in clubland during the late 1980s and early 1990s the type of characters Connolly describes brought me right back to my early and mid twenties.

    The Layer Cake mixing the world of private military contractors and criminal endeavour reminded me of a former boss who had an address book. The address book was alleged to be full of ‘good lads’ who could solve problems ‘at home or abroad’. He was anything but the action man himself, being obsessed with his Hugo Boss suits at the time. He’d apparently been employed because of his work for a major name in the road construction industry, before I’d worked for him.

    Great fiction like other forms of art has an intrinsic truth hidden inside that otherwise wouldn’t be able to be told.

    Get out and buy the book; watching the film before the book doesn’t affect your enjoyment of it. More book reviews here.

    The Layer Cake

  • Audrey 3Com net appliance

    Bob Cringely wrote an interesting article about the need for internet appliances such as 3Com’s Audrey to provide internet access for the slow adopters and laggards. internet appliance were orginally muted as an idea by Larry Ellison of Oracle as part of his network computing vision. They failed because of the topsy turvy economics that have driven PC growth, though one could argue that the iMac incorporate the spirit if not the technical specification of an internet appliance. Bob’s discussion reminded me of the small time I worked on 3Com.

    I got put on the Palm pan European PR account when the company had been spun out from 3Com and Audrey was on the horizon, my predecessor worked on Palm as part of the 3Com portfolio. Part of the reasons discussed internally for this was that Audrey had the potential to eat Palm’s lunch. Audrey was based on a more modern operating system. Even by 2000, Palm realised that its current operating system was in need of a replacement.

    Unlike Audrey, It couldn’t multitask and involved kludged layers of abstraction to work. When it worked it was brilliant. But it wasn’t ready for a connected online future and the greater demands that we will put on mobile computing devices. The upper layers of the operating system providing the user experience and handwriting were the real genius in the PalmOS.

    The lower levels were off the peg software from the mid-1990s. Back then we didn’t even have multi-tasking in Macs and most installed versions of Windows. Indeed Palm went on to buy Be Systems, who provided the software and expertise behind Sony’s eVilla internet appliance.

    Now PalmOne has different things to worry about, like how to stop Microsoft’s kamikaze antics in the handheld and mobile space. It is interesting that PalmSource has had to go and purchase a mobile Linux company due to client demand. More content similar to Audrey here.

    Revisiting this post in 2022 on the Audrey 3Com net appliances reminded of how Robert X Cringely in his book Accidental Empires talked about innovation in terms of surfing waves. Picking a wave too early would mean that you wouldn’t get much of a ride, picking it too late would leave you wiped out. Audrey was a ‘too early wave’. A stable multi-tasking operating system with easy single purpose apps is the basic technical specification for the iPad that my parents use to keep in touch wit me and the the world online. Superficially Audrey resembled the appliance like computing experience of the early iMac where everything you needed was in the box, but the iPad was its true successor as a communal communications and content consumption device. If that doesn’t sound like Larry Ellison’s net computing device and the Audrey I don’t know what does.

  • Duracell toy trends

    Battery supremos Duracell have conducted a Europe-wide survey on the most popular toys this Christmas. Full details can be found here. The report is available as a PDF, the most interesting part of the report is the survey insights section which highlighted some cultural trends amongst children and the differences across Europe. I have summarised Duracell toy trends below:

    • Action is the strongest draw for boys with radio controlled cars and race tracks. This goes against everything that we’re told about ‘generation playstation’ and the move to mobile and online entertainment
    • Fashion and beauty is the big draw for girls – the Smoby Star Party CD which allowed girls to become a singer a la Pop Idol or Fame Academy was a winner in this category

    Both of these findings in the Duracell toy trends research

    UK:USA

    • The UK was considered to have consumption patterns closer to the US than Europe
    • More toys were bought and more money spent in the UK than other European countries

    Northern versus Southern Europe

    • Northern European children prefer being outdoors taking part in sport
    • Southern European children prefer to play indoors with computer games and watching television. I was surprised by this given the football culture and better weather
    • Southern European children receive a higher amount of pocket money than Northern European children. But Northern European children start receiving pocket money at a younger age
    • Northern European children discover new toys through multiple channels: word of mouth, television, magazines, print advertisements, retail displays and catalogues
    • Southern European children primarily discover new toys through television
    • Southern European parents put a greater emphasis on educational value when purchasing toys

  • G Collection

    Godiva have come out with some bling-bling chocolates designed by a pastry chef appropriately named the G collection. The G collection moves Godiva deeper into luxury territory than it already is. It also marks a change in luxury that started with premium fragrances. Luxury is now about (relatively) accessible experiences, rather than its traditional space of luxury goods. 

    This kind of chocolate is designed to evoke the bespoke chocolates that would be available at the best restaurants and hotels. Obviously Godiva might be making this at a slightly more industrial scale.

    Godiva is thinking about the G collection as a halo brand. Think about the relationship between a Mercedes-AMG GT and the Mercedes A-Class saloon. Both have prestige positioning, but there is a world of difference in price and what the car says about you.

    They were ostentatious in nature. They are statement chocolates. It is an ostentatious enough for a statement gift and highly Instagrammable. The G collection are impressive, well crafted but not necessarily any better than other premium chocolates. It is much more about appearance, or more precisely about being seen. That being seen is important. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had many people gift the chocolates to themselves so that they can show on their social channels that they are living their best life. 

    The real question is who is the customer base who would pay for these chocolates. If you are really that well off, you would be able to get access to an artisan chocolatier and that does make you wonder about the seriousness of the product launch. The prices are that eye wateringly expensive. Godiva are looking to have the chocolate equivalent of Cristal or a bottle of Grey Goose vodka, so expect to see them in a Snoop Dogg video soon. Kudos to Trendwatching for the heads up. More luxury related posts here.