Saturday, September 27, 2008
24 hours: Beijing Beginnings * Munich Oktoberfest * Lost in Lisbon
Friday, September 26, 2008
Changing the World with Our Generation
It's been a while.... so we're just skipping to end of September travel.
Our journey began with the Annual Summit of Young Global Leaders (YGLs). In ’07, Lila was elected as a YGL by the World Economic Forum. YGLs are selected on their leadership in both business and civic responsibilities, as well as their age (<= 40). During their 5-year appointment, YGLs address the issues of the coming decades with the goal of creating a better world. Each year a summit is held that brings together ~200 of the 600 YGLs worldwide, including spouses. Lila and Karl joined this year’s summit in Tianjin, China near Beijing.
The first day’s activities were aimed at giving YGLs a better introduction of China. We started with a visit to a junior high school where the YGLs were split into teams. Our group, based out of the high school TV station, got an introduction of Chinese culture (tea ceremony, calligraphy, painting, etc.) from the students. Karl even practiced some Chinese calligraphy. In fact, Karl’s student ambassador kept a close eye on him including holding his hand thru various activities. Fortunately Lila is not the jealous type! J We had interesting discussions with the students regarding their concerns for the world in the coming decade.
After the school, we were hijacked by local officials who took us to their 3D museum. This is quite common in China. You’re taken where officials want to take you – not necessarily where you WANT to go. The museum was quite unique from a technological standpoint with 3D TVs, holographs, etc. Karl was especially happy because of the highlighted 3D adult content. Our final tour destination was a panel discuss at a local facility where entrepreneurs develop start-up ideas with government support. The day ended with a YGL networking dinner at an art museum which included a short workshop on dumpling making. We failed. The good news is that it’s only a few dollars to have a meal of famous Shanghai dumplings back home.
The 2nd day focused on leadership development. We were split by region and then by business sector. Within regional discussions, Karl joined the China group, and Lila the Americans. The most interesting part was creating a fable based on the leadership traits of our business sectors – whether financial, governmental, non-profits, technology etc. In the afternoon we spent time discussing basic leadership fundamentals for our generation. The evening included a dinner and very fun nightcap catching up with everyone. We are working on a separate blog entry summarizing our learnings from the day’s discussions.
Overall, the participants were amazingly well connected and influential – whether reporters for major news agencies, Royalty, business leaders, or bankers. Everyone is out to change world – they believe they can and they are already doing it. Everyone was also really friendly. Egos were checked at the door and we were all equal regardless of title (Prince, CEO, General Manager, or Spouse). Each time a group formed, people listened and were ok with collaborative leadership. We found this especially fascinating and contrary to work environment. It became very clear that a strong leader isn’t necessarily the one with the best idea, but the one who is able to bring diverging people and ideas to a common direction.
More to follow on this topic soon…
Monday, August 25, 2008
Liebats' Olympic Analysis - what won the Gold?!
GOLD: We witnessed Chinese cultural shift
The first weekend we saw first-hand the local crowd's limp response and the relatively empty stadiums. In contrast we saw foreigners with painted faces and crazy cheers willing to pay triple face value for scalped tickets (including ourselves!). We wondered over the next 3 weeks how the Chinese population would react to witnessing the foreign craziness.
During one local TV program, we heard an official recap how they had received complaints in the 1st week that seats weren't full and crowds were ambivalent. The government's response? "So we filled the seats and told the crowds to be more excited." And hence a culture has forever shifted.
SILVER: We didn't realize there were SO many games in the Olympics
Watching CCTV9 (affectionately referred to as "propaganda TV"), vs. American NBC, meant we got to skip the heartfelt stories of American Olympians overcoming ingrown toenails. The news focused more on the sports and the highlights - showing ALL countries participating. We created our own sport of guessing "what country flag is that?" and "what is this sport anyway?"
BRONZE: The 5% Off
While the Olympics were amazing, there was the 5% off. For example, it was illegal to scalp tickets but ok to buy (hence scalpers with "tickets wanted" signs). The boat loads of volunteers were so extremely helpful...but just a bit overly anxious. Olympic stores were everywhere, but we couldn't find "official game guides" or anything other than 1 of the 5 stuffed mascots. Beijing cleared the roads with special traffic laws (cars - based on even or odd plates - alternated days on the road), but the sky was still grey. The stadiums were amazing architectural feats, but unless you had a ticket you had to admire them thru the chain link fence.
Overall - absolutely fabulous. We're excited we went, and thrilled to have witnessed a small part of history.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Lila's Post Olympic Adventures in Mexico & the US
The day after our Olympic adventure, I was on a flight to Mexico. Small problem… a volcano spewing ashes resulted in the need for the flight to be rerouted and delayed by several hours. Upon arrival to SFO, 9 United international flights arrived late. It was PURE chaos. Sheila (admin) and I completely missed our flight to Mexico. We drove down to Palo Alto for a quick coffee, drove by our house to make sure all was well, and then to Intel's office for work and catching up with a few of the old team. We finished off with dinner with Nabeel & Asha before heading back to the airport for the redeye to Guadalajara.
The next 4 days in Mexico went well. Lila had her staff meeting and got to spend time with the (very impressive) team based there. Everything was excellent! We had software vendors, university experts, and a host of other people present to us. The local team also did a fabulous job making the staff feel welcomed and everyone bonded. I left Mexico very amazingly energized despite an intense schedule. Did I also mention how satisfying it was to have Mexican food?! That is one cuisine I crave in Asia as we haven't found any good restaurants.
Over the weekend was a great chance to catch up on a few errnads and with friends. By Sunday, in the US, Nabeel and I went to Sonoma to do some wine tasting. Wehad a great time exploring some family run wineries and ended the day at Ledson (where Karl and I were married).
The rest of the week was spent in work meetings and at the Intel Developer Forum. My team held some press and analyst briefings around our next generation classmate PC design. It's exciting to read how the press liked the features we are targeting based on years of research by our ethnographers, researchers, and user-centered designers.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Lila Named "Most Powerful Women Of The Channel"
Collectively, they have a voice that resonates through every corner of the industry. Individually, their roles run the gamut from distribution executives to vendor channel leaders to presidents and CEOs of solution provider organizations. Meet the 2008 VARBusiness Most Powerful Women Of The Channel.
LILA IBRAHIM
General Manager, Emerging Markets Platform Group - Intel Corp., Shanghai, China
Years In Position: 6 months
Years In Channel: 6 months
Hope To Accomplish: Ibrahim firmly believes that access to technology improves economic and social conditions around the world. By partnering with the channel, she says we can make a sustainable difference. This year Intel will continue to make technology a key tool for education in both emerging and mature markets while offering channel customers continued opportunities to differentiate their products. Intel will also introduce new products that enable PC accessibility and skills to new users.
Mentor: For almost four years Ibrahim served as Chief of Staff to Intel Chairman Craig Barrett, a man she says is a "tireless advocate for improving education worldwide and facilitating access to technology for all people." Ibrahim calls him a "mentor and a role model--a man who is able to weather both the worst and best of times with humor and grace."
Executives You Admire: Ibrahim looks up to those with backbone and those who do what's right even when it's not popular. She says she has been fortunate to work for many who are role models in ethics and value, and who listen, learn and grow as leaders no matter how many years of experience they have.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
WITNESSING CHINA WIN THE GOLD
SEARCHING FOR TICKETS
But first, we got distracted with our morning coffee and a few hours of hanging out with Jim. Alas, caffeine up, we set out. Our first stop was near a subway. It was fascinating to watch the co-existence of scalpers and police officers. Apparently it's legal to buy, but illegal to sell. So scalpers had signs that said they wanted to buy! We also learned to look for groups of people. Since it was the first weekend, the "scalping scene" had yet to be defined. There were quite a few tickets available, but most were for later in the evening (after our flight) or other days. Every ticket was at least 1000RNB ($150 US) - even though face value was 35RNB-200RNB. Having no luck by the subway stop, we walked the massive Beijing blocks to the main entrance of the indoor stadiums. Beijing is MASSIVE for those who don't know. A "block" is about 3 American blocks. Something that is "right around the corner" is about 10minutes away - sprinting. Ok, we're exaggerating - but not much!
GIVING UP
There were a lot more people scalping at the main entrance, but a lot less tickets. We walked up and down trying to find something - anything - for the afternoon. We finally took down some telephone numbers of scalpers who said to call back at 1:30. In the meantime, we went for lunch at this awesome restaurant place that Jim likes. We were a bit bummed we couldn't land any tickets, even though the day had been quite fun so far.
THE RACE TO MAKE THE START
With no expectations, we called one of the scalpers who actually had found diving tickets for 2:30. He called us a couple of times, asking if we were coming because he had people offering more than we paid (1250 RMB - so about 1000RNB scalping fee). While far more than we wanted, it was at least getting us into the stadium area. We raced back to the stadium to find all the streets around the venue were blocked for the street bike race. We were dropped off "nearby" which means about 2 miles from where the scalper was with 20 minutes until the start. The stadium area is fenced off, so we couldn't even shortcut in because first we needed to meet scalper guy for the ticket.
Once we finally got the ticket, getting through security was really easy given how well it's organized.
TICKETS FOR WHAT?!
It was only when we finally arrived at the Water Cube did we realize we were seeing Synchronized Woman’s Diving. We were a bit late to the start, but only missed the first of 5 rounds of dives for the 8 participating countries. The venue was awesome - so much more of the Olympic spirit. The event finished with the medal ceremony. It was particularly exciting as China won the Gold (Shanghai's first!), Russia won silver, & Germany bronze. We think China is still learning to be expressive. The audience and medal winners were far less rambunctious than the minority foreigners in the house.
We hung around inside the water cube - closer to the pool - watching the men's diving group warm up. Unfortunately we were kicked out for the next event, but not before Lila poked on the air-filled plastic walls of the water cube. It's really an interesting engineering approach to construction and gives the water cube a very dynamic shape.
THE INSIDE SCOOP
We were so excited to be walking around the inner area of the Olympics. We took pictures of the Birds Nest, went into some sponsor buildings, saw the National Indoor Stadium, the sculpture garden, the Olympic tower, etc.. We did notice, however, there were no stages or live music, or people tail gating. Definitely a more protected and serene environment, but didn't feel too Olympic.
As we were preparing to leave, there was a MASSIVE downpour. We hung out in some volunteer's tent, manned by University students. They helped us translate with Jim's driver to get picked up. Overall, the masses of volunteers were so warm, friendly, and helpful throughout both days.
Once the rain let up, we found Jim's driver and headed to the airport. Traffic was still wonderful. We like the half-capacity program where even and odd license plates alternate which days they are on the road. Overall, an absolutely wonderful trip - attending the opening weekend of the Olympics.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Olympics Day 1: Working the System for Rowing Tickets, Celebrating with Peking Duck
We arrived in Beijing at 7:30am and quickly made our way’s to our friend Jim’s place. He had Olympic tickets for the first heat of the rowing preliminaries later in the day. We spent the morning catching up and plotting how we might be able to get 2 people in with the 1 extra ticket he had. We eventually headed out to pick up the other co-workers from their hotel, then made the 1-hour journey to the rowing/sculling venue.
It was shocking how few cars were on the highway. Starting nearly a month ago, the government restricted traffic on Beijing’s roads. License plate numbers determine which days cars can be out, alternating between even and odd plates, though taxis can drive every day. We had allowed extra time to get to the venue, which was way outside of the city towards the Great Wall. We arrived 1.5 hours early due to the wonderfully light traffic. With the extra time, we stopped at local Chinese restaurant to watch the rerun of the opening ceremony. It was our first glimpse of the magnificent performance since the train ride didn’t have TVs.
Jim, an American w/great Chinese skills, was the constant master of working the system. He managed to get our 2 vans right up to the entrance while most people had to take a bus from the barricade a few miles away. Then he negotiated with the volunteers to get us to the front of the line due to the 3 small girls who charmed the volunteers. The parents were so worried about the girls ability to handle the extreme heat: 95F with 95% humidity. The volunteers also let the 3 small girls without tickets which left us 2 extra tickets to get in! By the end of the day, Jim had definitely wow’d us all with his chinese negotiation skills and ability to work the system.
The rowing event was quite fun. One of the US visitors is a big rowing fan, so he gave us the full download on the athletes and sporting rules. We ended up squatting in seats towards the finish line, and enjoying the beautiful pace in which the athletes rowed. (I do believe, however, Karl was charmed more by the female athletes running around warming up in their skimpy outfits.)
After the event, we made our way back to Beijing with a very enjoyable Monitor at the Kerry Center bar. Those were the best mojitos we’ve had in the country – and extremely refreshing after a very hot & humid day. It was then off for a quick refresh before Jim went to a business dinner, and we explored the city for Peking Duck. Unfortunately Jim’s recommendation (1949) was totally booked, so the driver took us to another restaurant (forgot name) where we had an awesome meal. We were exhausted from the lack of sleep on the train and the day in the sun. Nevertheless, we rallied enough to make it to the Olympic stadium. We had hoped to take night pictures of all the venues, and were very disappointed to find a massive fence all around the water cube and bird’s nest buildings. There were a lot of people out in the street, walking around and taking pictures with the fence blocking the view to the distant buildings. You needed an official ticket for an event to get into the main area. We were surprised by the lack of tailgaters, partiers, etc. in the streets. It was still full of energy and gave us an opportunity to try to understand the scalping scene. We found out it wasn’t as easy as expected. Perhaps we’ll have better luck figuring out tickets tomorrow. We have none right now…
