Bullish China

You may not know the website crunch.co.uk, but you must know SKYPE. Its chairman, Michael van Swaaij invest his own money into this website and “so impressed with the UK contractros”.  This brilliant guy believes he is digging gold in these startup website, such as PeoplePerHour.com, as some of his next high growth projects.

He is a magic man. “The unique package of skills and flexibility that contractors and freelancers can offer can result in the productivity gains required to make Europe a global competitor,” explains van Swaaij. “Plus, individuals are now demanding the work-life balance that the freelance lifestyle can support.”

“In many European countries, such as Germany and Italy, being employed is still the ‘gold standard’, so all the financial and societal infrastructure revolves around employees,” continues van Swaaij. “These entrenched attitudes impact negatively on contractors, often restricting access to basic financial products, such as loans and mortgages, and creating problems of status.”

“It’s only through productivity gains that we will be able to compete, and significant gains can be realised by tapping into an ever growing workforce of professional contractors and freelancers,” concludes Swaaij. “This presents many challenges, but also many exciting opportunities!”

The story often remind me of similar business in China.  Magic business man — Shi Yuzhu, who is trying to build a system of small groups in GA, a famous online game company.

It will not surprise me if there is another genius boy suddenly sell his small company or products at a great price as “freelance” in the future.  Will that be you?  then just take the first step: kick off your boss, right now.

So, what does the world need? Stimulus? Recovery? Sure, but TED is looking for the core values for human future, I believe I will see more sparkles from those brilliant speakers.   Now the same question to Chinese, I am not annoyed  about how to answer these simple and difficult questions, what I am worrying is : are there anyone or any group of people who would like to think in the TED’s way, a mankind way.

Let’s look at the following sessions and think about if we can find the proper person according to the list

Session 1: Insight

Looking beyond the crisis (Nobel Laureate Economist. Global Hedge Fund Manager. Historian. Futurist.)

Session 2: Courage

When the going got tough, who had what it took? (Entrepreneur. Contrarian Investor. Mountaineer. Humanitarian.)

Session 3: Discovery

Are there answers in nature? Who’s finding them? (Astronomer. Paleontologist. Geneticist. Nanotech Researcher. Explorer.)

Session 4: Provocation

This is a great team to be challenged on some fundamentals. (Corporate Critic. Libertarian. Hacker. Rap Artist.)

Session 5: Invention

Who is dreaming up the new ideas we need? (Smart-Grid Designer. Collaboration Catalyst. Concept Animator.)

Session 6: Imagination

Who can nourish our sense of wonder? (Theoretical mathematician. Sculptor. Landscape Artist. Musician.)

Session 7: Inspiration

Can a wish truly inspire change? (The TED Prize winners.)

Session 8: Reason

How do we think smarter — about the world, and about ourselves? (Media reformer. Statistician. Neuro-scientist. Philosopher.)

Session 9: Energy

Both metaphorically and literally. (Nuclear reactor designer. Radical Biofuels. Motivational Coach. Dance Troupe.)

Session 10: Laughter

There really is a funny side… And humor can catalyze understanding. (Comic author. TV host. Filmmaker. Stand-up. Singer-songwriter.)

Session 11: Simplicity

Is too much complexity a threat to our world? To our happiness? (Former Derivatives Trader. Legal System Reformer. User Interface Designer. Monk.)

Session 12: Wisdom

Step back, and the view looks different. (Anthropologist. Story Teller. Slum Dweller. Sage.)

We often (only) use these words in our composition in high schools, but not in our real life except your major is “classical philosophy” or you are a teacher.  All we need is about “money” “authority” … material things…

This new company is trying to improve business networking.

Have to delete this AD because too many friends ask where is it.

Our family is like a little chicken.
When it grows up it becomes a goose.
And it’ll turn into a sheep.
The sheep will turn into an ox.
And after the ox is Communism.
And there’ll be dumplings and meat every day.……”
Communism, or at least China’s bastardised version of it – what would Marx have made of fourth-class railway compartments in a supposedly classless society? – has duly performed its miracle. The path has been far from straight, the journey anything but painless, certainly not bloodless. But the Communist party, by its own criteria at least, has delivered. As the hero of To Live, a 1994 film by the director Zhang Yimou, promises his son and later his grandson, life has indeed got better for most Chinese.
The story of To Live, and indeed the life of Mr Zhang, a once-banned film director recast as the Communist party’s propagandist-

in-chief, tells us a lot about China 60 years after the founding of the People’s Republic and 30 years since Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms. An epic drama, soaked in the misery of collectivism and the madness of Maoist dogma, its portrayal of Communist rule was enough to get it struck down by censors. Yet, in the end, the film somehow manages to be optimistic, a celebration of the nation’s unity and capacity for progress after 150 years of colonial humiliation and internal strife.

That optimism is almost palpable in China’s frenetic cities, where nearly one in two people now live compared with one in 10 in 1949. Born of the belief that today is better than yesterday and tomorrow will be an improvement on today, optimism is a powerful antidote to the resentment of autocracy that many westerners too readily assume to be the norm.

Meat and dumplings are not enough to buy off everybody. But they help. After 30 years of breakneck growth averaging 10 per cent a year, per capita income on a purchasing power parity basis has hit $6,000 (€4,100, £3,750). That still makes China a lower-middle-income country, more Angola than America. The average also hides a yawning income gap that keeps the party leadership awake at night. Yet it has been enough to release hundreds of millions of people from poverty. More importantly, it promises to release hundreds of millions more.

Aspiration is everywhere. Each year, China produces 700,000 engineering graduates and 30,000 MBAs, says Beijing Axis, a consultancy. There are 650m mobile phones in circulation, roughly the number of pigs slaughtered every year. In the late 1990s, the consultancy reckons, only 500 Chinese residents knew how to ski. Last year, 5m visited ski resorts.

Nor is it merely a question of personal opportunities. China will shortly overtake Japan as the world’s second-biggest economy. This year, its people will buy more cars and trucks than Americans. Beijing has sent a man into space. China, in short, is well on the way to erasing the memories of colonial subjugation that have haunted a nation once accustomed to thinking of itself as the centre of civilisation.