Scott has been riding a bicycle with side wheels for almost 2 years, so now it was time to teach him to ride on a normal bicycle. Last weekend I removed the side wheels of his bicycle and I went out for a ride with him. At first Scott plainly refused, he just walked next to his bike. I finally convinced him to try it out, by promising to hold him the whole time so he would not fall.

It took about 15 minutes before he understood how to get some sort of equilibrium while riding, so he would not fall continuously. After 30 minutes he managed to ride a few meters without me holding him, but it was not a big success.

So today we gave it another try, and this time it went without a problem! Right away he got the hang of it (see video below or here on Tudou) and rode away from me as fast as he could. A few minutes later he even started riding over the speed bumps on the roads in our compound – without falling! He is very proud that he can now ride himself and I am a proud father!

At the same time Elaine also ditched her small tricycle and moved onto a bicycle with side wheels. I taught her how to ride last weekend and she picked it up very fast. She now tries to follow Scott and I try to make sure that none of them stays too far behind or falls down. An impossible task of course, but a lot of fun! See her video below where Scott almost crashes into her in the end. If the embedded video doesn’t work you can see it here on Tudou.

I just came across a German-language article on Daimler’s new “Life Balance” rules and I was surprised at some of the rights that Daimler employees will get. The one that most shocked me was that from next year on employees can opt to automatically delete all emails that they receive during their holiday! Yes, delete. Not just an auto-responder that they are on holiday and will answer after they are back, but a message that the message has been deleted and the name of someone who replaces the employee during their vacation.

Don’t get me wrong, when you are an employee you don’t have to work 24/7 and vacation should be a real vacation. I guess if you don’t want to check your email during your holiday that should be okay if you are not an entrepreneur or work for a start-up. But automatically deleting messages goes way too far. Suppose you are a customer sending an email to Daimler and you get a reply that your email has been deleted and that you should contact someone else… Ridiculous.

The problem is that once one company starts doing this, employees at other companies may also want these privileges. Maybe a huge multinational can survive with this kind of rules, but there is no way a start-up could ever implement this.

If I look back at the 7 years that I worked at Daimler I never worked much during my holidays, that was just not the company culture. The work basically stopped for 1, 2 or even 3 weeks and when you came back you had to work on a backlog of emails and especially (at that time) big piles of snail mail and memos. It felt good to work hard on that for a few days, knowing that you did not miss anything. I can’t imagine coming back from a holiday and seeing an empty inbox, it would scare me not knowing what had happened while I was not there.

Next to that, a lot of work that I did was not something that someone could just take over. You had to know the background of ongoing discussions and you would need to have access to all my past emails and files to figure those out. It’s not like you just replace someone working on a production line for a few weeks.

I guess it’s good that I am not a manager at Daimler anymore, it would literally freak me out if people working for me would delete their mails during a holiday. Of course it would be a quick way to figure out which employees are the least motivated or could easily be replaced, but I guess as a manager you would know that already anyway (and try firing someone in Germany, it’s almost impossible!).

Volkswagen went even further than this last year, for some of their employees Blackberry email stops working at 6:15 PM and only turns on again at 7 AM the next morning. I wonder if this actually works, it would probably cause me more stress knowing that I could not check or answer my email.

I just started reading Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, and the world that she describes in her book reminds me a bit of what’s happening with employee rights in Germany. Maybe my attitude toward work and employee rights has changed too much after 13 years in China? Is this the new normal in Europe or do Europeans also see this as a step too far?

One week from today the Shanghai Marathon will take place and this year the organization discovered that they can send out mass SMS to non-Chinese participants. A few weeks ago it already started by out of the blue telling me that I had to pick up my start number at a certain location. That message probably should have been sent next week but they broadcast it too early.

A few more messages followed and now the organization started to send out ‘tips’. They are so hilarious that I wanted to share them with you. Maybe Chinese runners appreciate this, but I can’t take a marathon organization serious that reminds me of things like ‘marathon strengthens physique and pleasures body and mind’…

Or this one from last night asking me to ‘make a self assessment’ because ‘caring life is everyone’s responsibility:

Interesting is that all messages so far came from different phone numbers, so you can’t even block their spam SMS. I hope the organization of the race will be more professional than these messages and better than the mess they created so far.

I have new businesses ideas all the time, but normally don’t have time to implement any of them or to find (and fund) a team to execute the idea. Today’s idea I got when my kids were playing in the playground and I was watching them. It’s one of those moments that you can’t do much else and my thoughts often go in different directions.

I look at new business plans almost every day and some are really good. But many still don’t get funded, because for example the team is not smart/eager/experienced enough, because they focus on the wrong target market, because their valuation is too high, or because of many other reasons that are not always completely objective.

Normally these teams already have a working prototype or built a working piece of software (I never look at plans that are still in the idea phase). Normally I don’t hear anything from these entrepreneurs again, but sometimes I hear from other investors that the company didn’t make it and shut down. Other teams manage to get some funding but eventually also don’t survive.

If you know that out of every 10 angel investments only 1 or 2 do really well and maybe another 1 or 2 generally just break even, it means that the vast majority of funded businesses eventually fail. If you also take into account the business that never raise any money, it probably means that 75-80% of all implemented business ideas never get off the ground.

From experience I know that most founders just abandon the idea and do something different. But that means that there is a huge amount of software, apps, websites and product designs out there that have value to other start-ups, but that nobody knows about. Many business ideas could still be successful in a different market or with a different team.

My idea would be to build an online market for virtual assets of failed companies, a Boulevard of Broken Dreams. It could be a database where companies can describe what virtual assets they have (probably source code is most interesting, but possibly also designs or even ideas that can be patented), and others can browse them and bid for these assets. I think you would be surprised how many source codes could be (partially) re-used in other start-ups. That would save new (or existing) businesses a lot of time, because they can get started with a working source code for a similar product that they are working on.

I have never seen a site or app like this (but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, just that the founders didn’t execute well enough), but it should be fairly easy to build. The potential market is huge, because most founders or investors should be happy to get at least some money back or may even be willing to be paid in shares in the new company. I certainly would use it, both to get inspired for new business ideas and to sell off virtual assets of companies that failed.

I just wanted to put this idea out there, because I don’t have the capacity to work on it and maybe it will inspire somebody to work on it.

Last night Grace and I were invited to watch Elton John perform in the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai. Our driver dropped us off at the backstage lounge at 7 PM, where Credit Suisse organized a small pre-concert cocktail reception.

At the pre-concert cocktail reception with Elton John glasses

We had a couple of glasses of Dom Perignon champagne and some excellent finger food, had our pictures taken, got Elton John sunglasses and talked to some friends who had also been invited. Our banker told us that Elton John did not want to come over for a meet and greet with the guests, but that the good news was that he would start on time today.

Backstage before the Elton John concert

Fifteen minutes before the concert started we walked into the stadium, took a look at the stage and then went over to our seats. We were in the 6th row, right in front of Elton’s piano, so we had a great view during the concert.

2Cellos

Exactly at 8 PM Elton appeared on the giant video screens announcing 2Cellos as the opening act. They started with Smooth Criminal, that made them famous on YouTube last year. It’s amazing what these guys can do with their cellos, watch them on YouTube or Tudou. During their second song the band members of Elton John came on stage already and joined the cellists in their performance. Right after that the band started playing the firsts notes of “The Bitch is Back” and Sir Elton jumped onto the stage. A great song to start the concert!

We had been informed that we would not be allowed to stand during the concert, but the moment Elton sat down behind his piano the whole floor stood up from their seats already. It took 2 songs before security managed to get everybody to sit down again. Of course during the rest of the concert lots of people started dancing at their seats, how can you expect people to only sit during such a performance?

The concert was completely sold out

The set list only consisted of famous Elton John classics, from the 1970s until the early 2000s. From Bennie and the Jets to Mona Lisa and Mad Hatters and from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road to the 12-minute Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding. Of course he also played many of his famous love songs, among others Your Song, Daniel, and Candle in the Wind. The total performance lasted almost 3 hours and ended with China favorite Circle of Life.

We had a fantastic evening with Sir Elton John in Shanghai, thanks for the invite Credit Suisse!

More pictures of the concert here on this set on Flickr.

On Wednesday I wrote about my disappointment with the Nike Fuelband, because the gadget stopped working after I had to upgrade the firmware. I was frustrated because I had started to become addicted to the Fuelband until it stopped working, and therefore I was ready to change to the Jawbone Up or the Fitbit One.

I didn’t really expect a reply from Nike and I also did not send them a link to my blog post. But within 2 hours of putting my post online the Nike social media team in the US contacted me through Twitter to see if they could help. The next morning a friend at Nike China contacted me to discuss the problem and at night an English speaking member of the Nike support hotline in China called me. Wow!

While having our Thanksgiving dinner the doorbell rang and a Nike delivery person handed me a new Fuelband. Right after that the Nike support person called me and told me he wants to help me to see if the old Fuelband can still be ‘unbricked’. He is going to call me back today at 2 PM and if it works I may have 2 working Fuelbands this afternoon. Thanks a lot Nike, this is world class support and I will (of course) start using the Fuelband again. Other companies can learn from this, Nike FTW!

We just finished our annual Thanksgiving dinner, this time at home in Shanghai. We had invited Danny and Cindy with their 2 kids, and Grace’ parents are visiting, so we had quite a big group. We started with a bottle of Champagne (Bollinger, which I start to like better and better) and some snacks. We had ordered a turkey with all the usual side dishes which arrived exactly on time, and had fantastic dinner. Danny brought a good bottle of French Pinot Noir, which went well with the food. We ended the dinner with home made chocolate cake with cups of hot chocolate (and a bit of Scottish whisky for the taste). I felt as stuffed as a turkey after finishing all the food.

For me Thanksgiving feels like the beginning of the holiday season, so for the first time this year I put a Spotify Christmas songs playlist on my Sonos. There is so much choice of Christmas songs on Spotify that I can listen to different albums and artists every night until Christmas, I love it. After dinner the kids played and watched a Sinterklaas movie, but at 9 PM Danny’s kids had to leave (the schools are open as usual tomorrow). Danny stayed a bit longer and we had a few glasses of old Port wine, always a good drink to end the night with. Thanks for joining Danny & Cindy, and Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Update (Nov. 23): Nike contacted me through 3 channels after this blog post and gave me a new (working) Fuelband. See blog post about this here: https://www.marc.cn/2012/11/nike-fuelband-support-is-world-class.html

Two weeks ago I was working on a very positive blog post about my Nike Fuelband, a device that measures how much energy you burn during the day. But before I could publish it my Fuelband suddenly stopped working while I was recharging it in my laptop. It literally turned into a brick when the Nike software tried to upgrade to a new firmware and there was no way I could restart it. I tried to reinstall the firmware, which did not work. I tried it from a different computer, which also did not work. I Googled solutions (it seems this happened to a lot of people, and only some were lucky and managed to install a new firmware on the device), but othing worked. My Fuelband is now just a rubber wristband filled with technology that can’t be used. I am pretty angry at Nike that they sell crap like this, an expensive device shouldn’t just stop working after 2 months.

It’s not the first time I am unhappy with Nike gadgets, last year I had a Nike GPS watch that I could not sync with the Nike software anymore. Also there I tried everything, but it just did not work. Maybe Nike should just stay with sportswear and let other companies produce their hardware and especially their software. I totally had it with Nike and I am glad I at least have this blog to fume about what happened to me and hopefully Nike will see this. I am sure their are thousands of people out there that have the same experience but who don’t have an audience to share this with.

For what it’s worth after the unhappy Nike experience, below the post that I planned to put up 2 weeks ago.

——–
Original post that I decided not to put online

For the past 2 months I have been walking around with a black silicone wristband. Some people asked me whether it is one of those magnetic bracelets that are actively being marketed on Chinese TV, others thought it’s a new kind of Livestrong bracelet condemning Lance Armstrong’s use of doping. But in reality it’s a gadget made by Nike that measures how active you are during the day, the Nike Fuelband.

I wasn’t sure where to buy them in China, so I got mine on Taobao.com (in several countries the Apple store sells them and likely you can also buy them in Nike stores). From the moment I received mine I have been wearing it every single day. Not because it looks so good (it doesn’t) but because the data it gives you about yourself is both fun and addictive.

The wristband contains 3 gyroscopes that measure your movement. If I run the Fuelband knows I am running because of the way I move and it measures the Nike Fuel I am burning, next to other things such as calories and the number of steps I have taken. It’s of course interesting to see how much energy you use per day, but Nike took it one step further by adding a gamification element to the gadget. You have to set yourself a daily goal (in terms of how much Nike Fuel you burn per day) and try to reach that goal every day.

There are daily and weekly rankings in which you can see how much Fuel you burned in comparison to your friends, and you can even automatically upload your daily results to Facebook to get some serious virtual social pressure to become more active.

Even though I don’t upload my results to social networks but only publish it on the Nike+ site (where anybody can theoretically see it, keeping true to my motto that sharing is caring), I still feel the pressure to reach my daily goal. The standard goal on my wristband is 2000 Fuel per day (which is the average for Males between 35-39 – when I bought my Fuelband I was still 39!), but I increased it to 2500 Fuel per day. I found out soon that on an average day I use about 1700-1800 Fuel if I don’t do any other activities. I need to do at least 20-30 minutes of sports to get to my goal of 2500 per day. And because of that I am more aware of that fact that I don’t do sports on certain days, and I actually start to do more exercise because of my Fuelband.

Nike was quite smart, because if you reach your goal 3 days in a row you are ‘on a streak’. Once you reach 3 days the pressure is higher not to lose the streak and I actually found myself riding my stationary bike at 11 PM once just to make sure I would reach my goal. So far my longest streak has been 11 days, getting a longer streak is hard because you sometimes have days that sports is impossible (because of full day meetings followed by drinks & dinners).

It’s also nice to compare extreme results. My record days was when I was in Yangshuo with Danny, where I burned about 7500 NikeFuel in one day (we rode 50 km on our bikes and walked around a lot in town). That means in one day I used the same amount of energy as on 4 normal office days without sports. Yesterday I ran a half marathon in the morning and burned about 6500 over the full day. The Fuelband gives you a great insight into how much you really do on a single day.

Nike uses Fuel instead of just calories, so results are more comparable among people. Theoretically Fuel usage should be comparable between 2 persons, whereas calories burned depend on your age, weight and gender as well. I say theoretically, because in practice results are not perfect yet. The biggest problem is that the Fuelband does not measure your heartbeat or your oxygen level (yet?). So if I swalk up some stairs or if I stroll along the street, I will burn about the same Fuel. Also some sports don’t give the right results, if I row on my rowing machine for 30 minutes I am exhausted, but I get roughly the same Fuel as when I would slowly jog for the same number of minutes.

But that aside, this is a great gadget if you want to want to become more active or just want to know more about how active you are. I am sure Nike will improve the Fuelband over time, this is just the very first model and there are a lot of things they can add or change. I hope that in the future a wristband won’t be necessary (some competitors have USB stick like products, like the clip on FitBit, that I may try out as well), because it is a bit annoying to always wear one.

However, I hope that Nike will improve its software and Nike+ website. It’s a lot better than a year ago when I gave up on my Nike GPS watch because of the terrible web interface that just didn’t want to update, but far from where it should be. The iPhone app is pretty good, but online Nike still has a long way to go. I especially hate it when they keep on forcing me to upgrade to a new Fuelband firmware, which takes ages. Nike is good at making sports products, but software is not their thing.

I am a big believer in this space and this kind of products, and I think we will all measure (and maybe publish?) data about our lives a couple of years from now. In my opinion this kind of device can have huge implications on public health, giving people incentives to become more active. Suppose your medical insurance would be reduced if you reach your goal 20 days per month for example! The Nike Fuelband and its competitors are just the beginning of a huge wave of personal data gadgets.