Damian Holmes

9. First in

Try to get your presentation on the first day or prior to lunch on any day – often people will organise lunches(long lunches) and business meetings after lunch at the conference to make the best of networking opportunities. Also many people will attend an event on the first day to be seen and then leave to attend to business.

10. Be a Polite Visitor

When you are giving a presentation in China unless you have been invited as an expert to give observations on what you think about China and its development it is best to keep observations to a minimum as you may come across as naive or reeking of colonialism.

11. Different Culture – Different Norms

The culture at conferences in China can be different from what you are use to and therefore what is acceptable at a conference differs also. Attendees will have their phones ringtones on and take calls during your presentation, they will also make conversation with other people and take photos of your presentation. These are just the norms in conferences in China. Be ready for it to happen and do not let it startle or distract you. If you are worried about IP in China with a new idea or concept then remove anything that you would be sensitive about.

12. Questions/Question Time

Most conferences in China do not have question time due to people preferring to ask questions in private, also asking a question of the audience  during a presentation will often go unanswered, so its best to leave it until afterwards after the presentation or during the meals.

13. Have hundreds of business cards

In China, handing out business cards is like second nature so get extras printed before you arrive in China or have more printed while you are here.

15. Off handed comments

A quick reminder to keep any off the cuff or joking comments/observations to yourself. Some people relax their manners after a couple of days in China as they are surrounded by non-English speaking people. Always remember just because you think they can’t understand what you are talking about doesn’t mean they can’t.

16. Have Fun

Presenting and meeting you people is fun. Enjoy the new experience and always try to take something away with you.

What I love about China and business in China is there is never a dull day. Business occurs 24/7 and doesn’t stop with over 1.3 billion people business occurs in offices, coffee shops, tea houses, farm fields, online via e-commerce, QQ, microsites, micropayments – the monetary sums are in the billions or just a few fen but it constantly moving and changing the landscape and way I look at China everyday – you think you know something or where a company is heading and then it skyrockets, plummets, falls apart or decides to do one of the biggest IPO’s in history. The business and its news cycle in China is never ending as China is now an economic superpower that influences every market, anyone who doesn’t agree has never been to China or has been asleep for the last three years. To use a paraphrase the parlance of the market if China catches a cold the rest of the world will have pneumonia!

I will try reporting on a daily basis what I see as I often think that I read so much about China and share with so few people also I would like to actually start using this as a way of curating my thoughts about China. Am I going to cover everything? no…the market is too big but I will be looking at the major stuff and then anything I think maybe sliding through without notice from the mainstream media. I’ll try explain some of the companies but most of the time will be linking to wiki’s corporate websites or other resources for further reading.

So here it goes…….

Well, I decided to relaunch chinalandscapearchitect.com as two separate blogs – chinese version and an english version. They will cover the same topics and posts with the text translated into Simplified Chinese from English and will be focused on Landscape Architecture. I have done this for two reasons

1.   The chinalandscapearchitect.com (chinese version) (english version)  blog could be more detailed about landscape architecture and China. I want to use chinalandscapearchitect.com as a tool to educate Chinese and English speaking people about Landscape Architecture. The basics and the detailed areas of landscape architecture from design to site management. Often Landscape Architecture blogs are too focused on one specific location or area (eg design, technical, plants,) without offering definitions or ideas that stimulate people to further explore more areas of landscape architecture. Landscape Architecture is my passion and has been seen the age of 10 and I feel that I need to share my knowledge with people so they can further understand Landscape Architecture and what landscape architects do.

2. I can have the freedom on my personal blog (damianholmes.com) to explore topics that relate to everything in  World from business to everyday things. I felt pressure that my personal blog has my name on it and I would have to be solely focused on Landscape and my professional career to promote my business SUSTAIN.DS.

Last week I went to Shenzhen to meet with some potential clients for some urban design and landscape architecture projects. All went well and should hear some news soon. I saw some parts of Shenzhen on my trips to and from the airport and whilst sitting in my hotel room looking over Shenzhen. I lived in Shenzhen for 18 months in 2006-2007 and I with this visit I saw that the city had changed, not greatly(well probably more than most cities in the world) but it still had changed with new elevated train lines and shell like train stations sitting above the road. I also saw large amounts of road works with new flyovers.

So what did I learn about the city and China from the trip?
I actually had a realisation when looking out over Shenzhen that was reinforced by a recent comments by government officials and that realisation is that China is still modernising and still has a long way to go and it’s current level of modernisation cannot be measured by large cities such as Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen. Although Shenzhen is a young(barely 30 years old) and modern city, it is still modernising and improving especially in the areas of transport, culture, and infrastructure.

During my 5 years of living in China I have had the opportunity to live in Shanghai most of my stay. Shanghai is a city that has remade itself and some of this remaking/modernising was for 2010 Expo and other pieces are part of the city’s 2020 plan. Living in Shanghai can often make you become lost in the new modernised city and forget that the rest of China is still modernising or beginning to plan to modernise. Large areas of China are modernising at a great pace with high-speed rail and new highways linking cities but it is not just these elements that make a modern nation. People’s lives and cities they live in are still in need of modernisation whether this is new roads, housing, parks, greenways or bicycle infrastructure. The other realisation is that there are still many millions of people who will move from rural areas to new cities that have not even been planned yet. For those who live in China, this may seem as obvious, however I think as an urban designer and landscape architect, I have to keep a good macro perspective that large areas of China are still in need of good planning and modernisation. How to best service these areas is through current practices but also education of the new graduates entering the profession from small technical colleges to large research based universities.

Modernising of China is not just designing for existing cities but also developing new design theories and tools for future cities.

View of Bujizhen, Shenzhen from my hotel

View of Shops selling pottery & ceramics

View of Bujizhen, Shenzhen from my hotel

Over the past two years with the Global Financial Crisis hit nearly every nation across the globe and as a result landscape architects where laid off in large numbers. This was hardest felt in the USA due to lack of work and collapse of the home building market.

Governments from USA, UK, Canada, Australia, China and many other countries kick-started their economies with Financial Stimulus packages which has given some firms more work but has created just enough work to sustain the staff they had kept on.

At World Landscape Architect, however I have noticed in recent weeks that results for tenders and competitions seems to appear on the web more and more frequently.

Will there be a shortage of landscape architect with economies picking up and more work coming into companies? Well if we go back to late 1990’s to mid 2000’s there were many reports of shortages of experience staff at landscape architecture firms in UK, Australia, New Zealand, UAE, North East Africa and some parts of Asia which was driving up salaries and as a recent article by Mark Smulian at Planning Resource raised the issue that CABE has fears that a shortage will occur again….

Like planning, landscape architecture has never really recovered from the 1990s recession. People left the profession or chose not to enter it, leaving a gap in experience. CABE fears a repeat in this recession and say a minimum of 550 new entrants a year are needed on landscape courses.
[SOURCE: Planning Resource]

Will there be a shortage remains to be seen but the outlook looks good for landscape architects currently unemployed with more work and projects appearing daily and the growth in sustainable design and trend of developments and cities incorporating ratings systems such as LEED ND and Sustainable Sites. Also there is a large amount of work that will be generated with the explosion on new cities in Asia and North Africa and the renewal of many towns and cities throughout the UK and USA. Therefore, if your unemployed there is hope yet and if your employed help push your local Universities and Professional Institutions to keep promoting the profession even more so during the current times of stagnant or slight growth to encourage more students to go into the profession and encourage those thinking of leaving to rethink their long term careers.

By Damian Holmes

SIDENOTE: The article by Mark Smulian at Planning Resource titled ‘Greening our cities‘ is a great article that looks at the role of landscape architects, our strengths and weaknesses.

CROSS POSTED AT WORLD LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT

Recently, I went to my local Xinjiang Noodle shop for lunch. I ordered my usual and sat down inside on a stool. As I sat there looking around at the full tables, I wondered why is it so many people come here. Now to explain the scene, Xinjiang Noodle shops often have three or four large pots of water boiling away and someone inside the door making noodles and passing them to outside to be cooked.

So why do people come here? This shop is not elaborate and some would say not that hygienic – so why is it that its full at lunch and dinner? Is the location? Is it the price? Is the food?

Honestly, I think it is a combination of factors – price, food, authenticity and drama.

The Price
The shop is a ‘cheap eat’, however there are several restaurants in the area that are just as cheap. That being said if they charged more than 15RMB(about $2.00USD) they would loose customers quickly.

The Food
Xinjiang food is different from most Chinese food and noodles are speciality so people come for the noodles.

The Authenticity
The shop is authentic with pictures of animals and fields in Xinjiang on the wall, but the people is what makes it truly authentic.

The Drama
People watch the guy make the noodles for each order from the dough they made in the morning. You see and hear long thin noodles being banged and twisted on a table or watch him carve wide noodles from dough with a blade flying into a pot of water as he yells at the waiters inside who are joking with each other.

The noodle shop has no pretences, no veneer, nothing hiding the process from the customer, we can see, smell, and hear our noodles being made.

So what can we learn from the Xinjiang Noodle Maker? Authenticity and drama are key to attracting customers time and time again. Too often in business we hide the process or core ideals from the customer because we are fearful that they might not like what they see. However, we could generate more business if the customer could smell, hear, and see how authenticity of your brand.

How does this apply to you business? Think of all the examples of businesses that create authenticity and drama. I can think of a few other examples:

• chocolate/icecream/waffle shops who show people making the process of  creating their product
• whisky distilleries and vineyards  who give guided tours from above the working floor on gangways
• museums and art galleries showing experts restoring pieces
• nurseries showing plants in hot houses or trees at different stages of production
• film studios opening lots with people on set
• milk tea shops in Malaysia
• Richard Branson’s many PR stunts – although showy they are authentically Virgin
• car companies giving guided tours of  factory floor

there are many more examples. So the question is how can you create drama and authenticity for your customers? Does your production process enable you to showcase your product? Can you create drama that represents your companies brand in an authentic way? Can you create a unique experience for customers? Can you get someone passionate from manufacturing or engineering to attend a trade show rather than just sales people?

Of course, you have to careful when applying this idea across a whole brand as it can loose its authenticity. There are some examples where this has occurred with a brand making an authentic and dramatic experience into a formula which is then scaled across a brand that has then lost its appeal with the customers as it became too ubiquitous.

Got any comments or ideas? Email me – damian@damainholmes.com

Last Thursday, I attended the GIGA Print presentation given by Mario Van der Meulen of SGTH Designs. It was an interesting presentation about the Print industry and how as graphic and print designers can be more effective in design. Some of the talk was doom and gloom about the environment but it focused more on being a designer and your attitude to and the process you use. The talk also provided examples and solutions.

I liked the presentation and I got similar ideas from this talk as the Su Yunsheng presentation. The basic idea – that its about process not the application. Mario was talking about how through following a more responsive and interactive process of design you can be more effective and thus more environmentally friendly.

By starting with the client at point A and then asking questions and then coming up with a design rather than standard practice of client asks for X you give them X with no questions asked. X may not have been what they really wanted and maybe you could have given them something different and saved money & stopped negative impact on the environment. I have experienced the client asks for X constantly in China and in the west. Clients often don’t know exactly what they want or the range of options that are available, how could they its not their business. This is the reason they hire you you are to give them concepts and ideas as you are an expert in whatever field you specialise in.

Mario gave an example of a client who wanted 100,000 mail-order catalogues because they worked on the premise of 3% return. The address list they were using was to general. Mario suggested the client may wish to get a focused address list based on a survey of households. At the end of the day based on the survey and address list they got back they only needed 30,000 catalogues thus saving 70,000 from landfill. Mario is a great presenter and gave some good insights into his industry and examples that were practical and easy to understand for non-print designers.

I think we all need to more proactive in asking clients questions about exactly is it they want to achieve then coming up with a solution. If they ask you to do something that you aren’t an expert in then ask someone who is and collaborate. Collaboration is also key to finding solutions. Collaborating with printers, designers, manufacturers etc is the only way we all learn and make design more effective.

So the takeaway? – As a designer or expert you can be more effective if you think more about the process of the idea and not just pure application of an idea.

GIGA is a great organisation that has dual-language(English/Chinese) website and a great green database of products

There lectures have finished for the year and will be back after CNY in February look at their website and also sign up for the newsletter to know more.

Recently, I attended the JUCCCE Green Ideas Lab in Shanghai. The event was 3 x 8 minute presentations followed by break out sessions in small groups. I thought it would be good to share the ‘light bulb’ moments that I had during and on the way home from the event.

IDEA 1: No matter how big or small the idea or problem by integrating green ideology into the solution you can have an impact on a macro scale.

Ellen Carberry from the China Greentech Initiative spoke about how the problem is too big and too important to ignore and that companies cannot do it along and need to collaborate. Ellen presented the initiative and report that they produced. The ideas and professionals that they were incorporating into the report were looking at the issue on a macro scale – not just city or provincial but country wide.

Su Yunsheng from Etopia & Tongji University spoke of his work with pre-fabricated housing and how he wished to make the process of residential construction more efficient in use of materials and logistics. He was looking at the problem from a macro point of view – a industry wide perspective.

Philip Sohmen from YK Pao School spoke about the school and the its plan for the future and that they wanted to create a green school and by the end of the Idea Lab had realised that he could have a set of ideas that could be used for many schools not just YK Pao School. Philip started out looking at a micro level – his school; but realised from his session that the ideas generated could have macro implications – across the city, province and country.

Through these 3 presentations I realised that your idea can always have an impact at a macro scale.

IDEA 2: The green message you present must be positive to be effective

I have been to numerous green/sustainable events over the last few years some have been free and others have cost me hundreds of dollars, and at each one of these events there has been at least 1 or 2 dooms day presenters with the sky is falling and we need to do something now presentation. And as soon as these presenters start to talk, I and many others in the room, eyes glaze over or we start to read the programme and plan which event we will go to next. Green events are often preaching to the converted there is no need to present the doom and gloom. Now, think about when you are presenting to an industry group and a wider audience who have some knowledge about green/sustainability they are there to hear solutions not the same rhetoric about we are all doomed and must do something now and offer no solutions.

Through all 3 but mostly Ellen Carberry’s presentation I realised that in keeping the message positive and providing solutions is the most effective way of getting the message across.

IDEA 3: Be more effective by looking at the process rather than the application

Often when you think of green and sustainability in relation to architecture and urban design, people often think about the application not the process. What do I mean by this statement? People often get bound up in thinking about green especially when looking at architecture about the application or object. They want to know does the building have solar panels, cross flow ventilation, water recycling and Green rating (LEED, Green Star, BREEAM, etc) and many other forms of green application. This is the application of green not thinking about the process in terms of green. The process is how does the application or object get built? and in the case of Su Yensheng’s idea its the process of construction in the residential building industry.

Many at the Su Yunsheng’s workshop(which I attended) couldn’t get their heads around his project because they kept looking at the application not the process. To get around this issue I think he should introduce himself not as architect or urban designer but as a process designer or architectural logistics engineer so that the audience concentrate on the idea/process not the architecture. His idea is to change the building industry to pre-fabrication housing. Su Yunsheng had looked at all the different processes of construction around the world and hit upon the idea that pre-fabrication is the most efficient process. By using pre-fabrication process of  constructing housing he feels that there will be a large increase in efficiency of the construction process by reducing the amount of materials and construction time. He has also made the building modular, so that it can be movable as Chinese families are relocating more often. His idea is nothing new, as pre-fabrication is a process used across the world. However, in China were residential construction is the main industry for many new cities and is often one of the largest polluters through the use of concrete and brick construction methods, his idea will greatly reduce the amount of energy and CO2 because he looked at the process not just the application.

Through this presentation and workshop session I realised that it is often better to look at the process and make it as efficient as possible and then you can look at increasing efficiency through various forms of application.

IDEA 4: Share the information and collaborate with others

Philip Sohmen spoke about his school and the integration of green ideas into the curriculum. His workshop was about looking at how to make his new schools green. What I think we all gained from the summary of Philip’s session was that not only could he use these ideas for his own school but if he collaborated with other schools and professionals that they could provide a template or guidebook on how to build a green school with a green curriculum.

Through sharing ideas and collaboration with like organisations (in this case other schools) and a wide range of differing professions you can achieve more than working internally with people in your organisation.

Another idea related to sharing that came out of the sessions was using websites(established such as GIGA foundation or to newly establish a website) in relation to the Greentech and Schools could be the most efficient and easiest way of disseminating the idea and then collaborating together to find solutions.

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I hope that these ideas are useful to you and hope you use the share function below to share these ideas within your organisation, and industry & peer groups through email, facebook, twitter, google reader and numerous other information outlets.

DAMIAN HOLMES 19 NOV. 2009

The title of this post came to me this morning whilst getting a coffee at Croissants de France. Recently, the Croissants de France near my  apartment put in a new coffee bar with coffee, lattes, cappuccinos and milk teas at half the price (8-12RMB $1-2USD) of the coffee chains who charge 18-36RMB ($3-6USD). The Coffee chains in Shanghai include Starbucks(USA), Coffee Bean(USA), Gloria Jeans(Australia), Costa(UK), Jamica Blue(Australia) and Wagas (local chain of 14 stores started in 1999) .

So does cheaper coffee from bakeries mean that the coffee chains will starting getting more competition from non-sit down coffee shops/bakery chains. Will Bread Talk (aka Bread Top) start serving coffee? Will the recently entered Donut King, Dunkin’ Donuts & soon to be launched Krispy Creme have the same effect in Shanghai on the coffee chains as they did in the USA?

My opinion is that the competition is getting fierce in a quickly growing market. Over the last ten years international coffee chains keep entering the Shanghai market and now the Donut chains are moving in. The market is relatively new(10 years old) however it has grown fast, with its first Starbucks opening in Shanghai in 2000 and then exploding across the city and soon to open its 112th store in a nation of tea drinkers is pretty impressive. However, there has also been an explosion of other coffee chains across the city, add to this the rapid rise in small milk tea bars that offer beverages from 4-8RMB, it appears that the beverage market is getting more and more fragmented.

Read the rest of this entry »

Wow, time flies. I didn’t realise its been 3 months since I posted something. Funny thing is that I have posts in draft form on here but they are mainly rants.

Also I haven’t been able to find the time to get my thoughts together as running three industry blogs (worldla.com chinalandscapearchitect.com UAElandscapearchitect.com) and trying to start-up a new business is not ideal and running Tweetups & Shanghai Twitterville (although thats not that time consuming)

Something is going to give soon, think it will be one or two of the blogs as they haven’t made me any good money in a long time. Not that is what I started them for originally I had another 4 landscape architecture blogs but closed each one due to time.

However, maybe its time to get serious about getting them to the next level as ezines or pro blogs like inhabitat or treehugger. But, these have teams of people and companies behind them. Something to think about and will make a decision about by the end of 2009.

Also I took some interesting photos of the USA while was there and of the ever changing Shanghai which i have to add to a Picasa stream and place on here.