I was quite impressed by the medieval town of Stein am Rhein in North Switzerland where I spent the last weekend. I already put up a blog post on Sunday with a few pictures, and here are a few more that give a good overview of the town and its surroundings.

View over Stein am Rhein from the Hohenklingen caste

Vineyards in the hills above Stein am Rhein

Countryside with vineyards around Stein am Rhein

View over the Rhine during lunch at the Chlosterhof Hotel

The Rhine is still very clean when it passes by Stein am Rhein

View of Stein am Rhein and the Chlosterhof hotel

View from the bridge in Stein am Rhein

Stein am Rhein as seen from the bridge

Stein am Rhein with the Hohenklingen castle

After speaking about the influence of online media in Stein am Rhein, one of my points about how social media has changed our lives was proven on the way back to Shanghai. Yanik Cantieni, a former Daimler colleague and friend of mine (we were both on the international management trainee program 15 years ago and we later both moved to China/Hong Kong for the automotive multinational), saw on Facebook that I had been flying through Frankfurt over the weekend and asked when I would fly back. I told him I would transfer at FRA on Monday night and by coincidence he also had a late night flight that evening from there!

I only see Yanik about once a year or so, we live in different places and both work a bit too hard. The last time was in November last year when I was speaking at an Internet conference in Jakarta. At that time Yanik was still working as CFO of Mercedes-Benz Indonesia, but since then he has moved back to Europe and he is now a vice-president for Magna. Usually when we meet for dinner and drinks the evening only ends when the bars close (work hard, play hard!), but because I only had less than two hours to change planes we had to pack our stories of the past year in a shorter time frame.

Yanik picked me up at my arrival gate and we then went for drinks in the Senator lounge at FRA. This one has a good bar with a bar tender that mixes some excellent cocktails. We decided to stay with Weizenbier though; I was thirsty and I am not a big fan of mixes right before going on an overnight flight.

We both had quite a roller coaster year, not only in terms of our business but also of private lives. But I guess that’s normal when you’re in your late 30s and try to get the most out of life? I won’t go into detail – my life may be semi-public but Yanik is in corporate life where privacy is still valued a bit more :>. While walking to our respective gates (coincidentally his gate was almost next to mine with only a 5 minute difference in departure time) we concluded that we both had enough material to write a book! It was cool to catch up again Yanik, let’s talk a bit longer over the next couple of months somewhere on this planet.

I am spending the weekend in Stein am Rhein in Switzerland where I speak at the Stars 2011 conference. This is a bi-annual conference in Switzerland and China where 80 ‘Leaders of the Next Generation’ come together to discuss about the challenges and choices for the next decade.

The participants are leading figures aged between 35 and 40 years old from the world of business, science, politics and NOGOs, all hand picked by their own bosses. Think partners in top consulting and accounting firms, country managers for multinationals or directors of NGOs. I am not one of them of course, but was invited as a speaker on the influence of online media. I will give a talk on Monday in a section on “The Media and its Changing Influence”. Among others Bertelsmann CEO Hartmut Ostrowski will also speak in this session.

I look forward to the talk, because after spending since Saturday morning with the group of participants I realize that many are far behind in social media use – at least in comparison to the people that I normally work with. I spent quite some time talking to people here about why they should use Twitter, Facebook or other social media. Several argued that they are too busy, but actually most have never tried it and don’t really know what they are missing or how it can help your business.

In contrast to other conferences that I normally attend nobody was using iPads or laptops during the talks, and there were no Stars hashtags on Twitter. I found a couple of tweets from participants, but most were actually using pen and paper to make notes. I realize of course that social media usage at big organizations is different than that of start-ups and that is fine. But I think it’s important that this group of future multinational CEOs realizes how online media has changed the world and how it will keep on changing it.

This morning I was surprised by two of the speakers when they among others discussed the use of Twitter and Facebook. English politician Lord Michael Hastings of Scarisbrick (Global Head of Citizenship at KPMG) and Prof. Joachim Bitterlich (former foreign policy advisor to Helmut Kohl and currently a.o. board member at Veolia) both argued that Twitter and Facebook lead to a focus on short term decision making and don’t allow you to step back and take a longer term view. Having that opinion is fine of course, but not when you first announce that you don’t use Twitter and Facebook! It’s so typical that people who don’t use social media seem to be the biggest critics of it.

When Joachim Bitterlich then called mobile devices ‘awful devices’ (“During most of my career we did not use Blackberries and that worked just fine”) and Lord Hastings nodded in agreement I could hardly believe it. They are very smart and experienced men, but without being disrespectful I have the feeling that life has moved faster than they have and it almost seems they don’t want to acknowledge that. Generally they have excellent views on the world and the strategic risks for the future, but this part made my hair stand up on end.

The location of the symposium is in Stein am Rhein, a late-medieval town on the river Rhein. I took the Friday midnight flight from Shanghai to Frankfurt and the shuttle flight to Zurich from there. A driver picked me up from the airport on Saturday morning and drove me to the town. The hotel we are staying is directly on the Rhine and my room (a suite actually!) is directly on the river, with a huge balcony. On the other side of the Rhine I see the vineyards, it’s an amazing place to spend a few days. The late September weather is also great, sunny with highs in the low 20s Celsius, which makes it even nicer. Before the seminar started yesterday I ran 20 kilometers along the Rhine (a good remedy against jet lag) and it almost felt like a holiday.

I had never been to Stein am Rhein and I have to say it’s a beautiful town, full of old renovated houses. If I understood it correctly the town owns 1% of stock in Novartis and they use this money to renovate the buildings. The conference is held in the Buergerasyl, a renovated building that’s hundreds of years old (one of the participants told me the renovation costs were 13 million EUR just for this building!). An impressive location for a seminar, probably one of the most interesting place I ever spoke at. And tonight we will have cocktails and dinner at the castle of Hohenklingen high above the town and the river, which something really special that I now already look forward to.

All in all the Stars conference is excellent, in terms of participants, content and organization. Most of the speakers are top notch and I had tons of interesting discussions about politics, NGOs, strategic views of the future and (of course) social media. I am very honored that the organization asked me to speak to this group and I am happy that I could fit it into my schedule. I met several people that I will likely stay in touch with and I learned a lot already. Thanks to the organization and the sponsors for putting together such an amazing event!

Last night I was asking Grace about an interview she was going to do with Bloomberg today. She was surprised that I knew about the interview because she didn’t think she mentioned it to me. I told her that she put it in her calendar, so that’s where I saw it. Then she was even more surprised because she didn’t know I could see her Google calendar.

I told her that while I was in the US last week suddenly all her calendar items popped up in my Google calendar. I assumed she was finally convinced of the fact that the more you share the better it is for you, and that she took it to the next level by sharing her calendar publicly. A year ago she was still complaining to me about me sharing my whole life on my blog, on Twitter and Facebook, but now she probably posts more on Weibo (Chinese Twitter) than I do on all social media sites combined. So this could have been a logical step. Or maybe she just wanted me to know when she needed the car and driver without having to tell me. Whatever the reason I found it quite practical.

Because around the same time my colleague Joop Dorresteijin also started to share his Google calendar I thought that Google may have given people an incentive to share calendars. I checked with Joop today and it turned out that it was a coincidence, he had not planned on sharing his personal calendar but only the work related UnitedStyles items. The settings in Google calendar are not very clear and now also some of his private appointments appeared in my timeline.

For Grace it turned out to be a mistake as well. She set up a new MacBook Air and I assume she must have unknowingly changed some settings while importing her old calendar items. She was obviously not too happy that I had access to her calendar without her knowing this, so she changed the settings right away. Well, at least my calendar is not so clogged up anymore. And I will check my own settings to find out with whom I am sharing my calendar!

On Thursday I will be speaking at a CEO dinner organized by Silicon Valley Bank at Kathleen’s 5 in Shanghai. About 100 people already confirmed their attendance, so it will be a nice crowd. Not sure if there are still seats available, but if you want to join best is to get in touch with Libby Tang at (+86)-21-6143 3812 or ltang@svb.com to reserve your seat.

Text from the official invitation:

The Chinese tech industry is developing faster than ever with massive potentials. It is the place for entrepreneurs to be. Ken Wilcox, Chairman of Silicon Valley Bank, will be joining us for a panel discussion. Ken moved to Shanghai three months ago to head up Silicon Valley Bank’s creation of a joint venture bank with Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Co. Ltd.

Other panelists include, Jacob Hsu, CEO of Symbio, and Marc van der Chijs, Co-founder of Tudou. Both Jacob and Marc have successfully started and grown their business ventures here in China. We are also delighted to feature Dr. Lu Gang, a pioneer tech blogger with many followers, to moderate the panel discussion. He is a technology and social media expert who was awarded as TOP10 Best Expert of 2008 by iResearch.

The following topics will be discussed:

– The differences of entrepreneurship between East and West
– Experiences in doing business in China, what is the must and what is the must-not
– Views on local investment environment, what are the current and next investment sectors
– The trends in Chinese tech industry
– SVB’s China strategy and views on Chinese market

Speakers:
Ken Wilcox, Chairman of Silicon Valley Bank
Jacob Hsu, CEO of Symbio
Marc van der Chijs, Co-founder of Tudou

Moderator:
Gang Lu, Founder of TechNode.com

Kathleen’s 5 Rooftop Restaurant
325 Nanjing Xi Lu, 5F, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai
地址: 上海市南京西路325号上海美术馆顶楼

Thursday, September 22, 2011
5:30 – 9:00 p.m.

Agenda:
5:30 – 6:15 p.m. Sign in and cocktails
6:15 – 7:15 p.m. Panel discussion
7:15 – 7:45 p.m. Q & A
7:45 – 9:00 p.m. Dinner

Last week Elaine was chosen as Star of the Week for her Nursery class, and so her picture was put at the entrance to the school. Elaine was very proud of her achievement, and of course I am also proud of her being the first Star of the Week in her class.

I am also proud of her language skills, and how easily she switches from Dutch to Chinese and to English. Her Chinese is now basically fluent, her English is quite good (and even better than Scott when he was 2 years and 4 months old) and her Dutch is already at a basic level (she understands most Dutch things I am saying to her, but her vocabulary is not big enough yet to really talk back to me in Dutch).

Sometimes things go a bit wrong though, especially after I come back from a business trip and she did not hear nor speak any Dutch for a couple of days: on Saturday she came to me and asked me “You leave me papa?”. I was a bit surprised by her question, I thought she was asking me whether I was going on another business trip. But no, it turned out she was trying to find out whether I like/love her, and she used the Dutch word ‘lief’ for that, which does sound very similar to to English ‘leave’. She was using English grammar, however, so it took me some time to figure out what she meant.

Another example of a Dutch mistake that she makes and that always makes me laugh is when I ask her what she is eating (=’Wat eet jij?’). It happened a few times already that she answered ‘Elaine’. It took me a bit to figure out why she answered with her name, but then I realized that she thought I was asking her her name, which sounds similar in Dutch (=’Hoe heet jij? -> Eat=eet, your name=heet).

Scott, who is now 3 years and 9 months old, is now fluent in Chinese and almost fluent in English and is very good at Dutch. He can even translate things from Chinese to Dutch or English for my parents when they come to visit. That can come in handy sometimes with our staff who only speak Chinese.

It’s amazing to see how quickly kids pick up the languages we speak at home and how natural they switch from one language to the other. Interesting is also that the kids often speak English among themselves when their nannies are around (so the nannies can’t understand what they are saying) and Chinese when they are with my parents in Holland (for the same reason). But if they ask them something they switch to another language without even thinking. Wish I had learned Chinese and English at their age already…

I am at the DEMO Fall 2011 conference in Santa Clara, CA at the moment. It’s my first time at this conference, that takes place at exactly the same time as its competitor TechCrunch Disrupt. I visited most of the TC Disrupt conferences over the years, and I expected DEMO to be very similar. Although both events showcase start-ups that launch on stage during the event, there are quite some differences.

First of all companies have to pay USD 18,500 to present on stage for 5 minutes at DEMO. TechCrunch Disrupt is free to present, if you manage to get in of course. Both events cost money to attend, DEMO USD 1795 and TC Disrupt USD 2995 for the current event, although I met several people that got in for free (mainly VCs – disclosure: my tickets were given to my by a VC firm as well). I find USD 18,500 a lot of money to invest for a 5 minute presentation for a start-up. Maybe I am biased because I am based in China, but with that amount of money we can run UnitedStyles.com for about 5-6 weeks right now.

When you present you get a lot of press coverage of course, but looking at my Twitter stream and RSS feed the coverage of Disrupt seems better than DEMO. Maybe because TechCrunch does hardly write about the companies presenting at DEMO, but Venturebeat (that works together with DEMO) does have writers at Disrupt. Gust.com did a good job this year by presenting on stage at DEMO and getting a write up on TechCrunch at the same time by sponsoring Disrupt.

In terms of start-ups, the consumer oriented ones seem to be better off at Disrupt, but if you are perceived to be more ‘boring’ you’ll probably have a better chance at DEMO. Over the years many products from established companies have launched at DEMO. Some of these are really interesting, but you won’t see them at Disrupt.

DEMO has been around for many many years and used to be the #1 place to launch your start-up. It has a good reputation and several VCs and entrepreneurs on stage mentioned that they once launched a company at DEMO. Disrupt seems to have taken over the #1 position, at least in my perception, and at least for now – not sure what will happen after Mike Arrington announced on stage on Monday that this will be his last working week at TechCrunch after the fall out he had because of the CrunchFund.

Disrupt definitively has more action, more loud music and much better food. It’s more like a rockstar event. DEMO seems to be more of a serious conference, it is smaller and if you attend as an investor it’s easier not to miss any of the interesting companies. There are a lot more companies presenting on stage at DEMO, 80 in total during this conference. Because they all have just 5 minutes to present and there is no expert Q&A like at Disrupt, I feel you get more information more quickly. Most people in my Twitter and Facebook network seemed to be at Disrupt, not at DEMO.

Both conferences have its pros and cons, but I personally like TechCrunch Disrupt better. If I would launch a company I would certainly first try at Disrupt, paying USD 18,500 for a slot to present at DEMO just does not feel right to me for a start-up. Maybe that was okay 15-20 years ago, but times have changed. For that amount you can launch a company and a (simple) product these days.

Putting on my investor glasses I think Disrupt may have the more interesting companies on stage, but at DEMO you get to see more companies in a shorter time, which is also important. Also if you invest more in non-B2C companies DEMO may be better. One thing in which DEMO excels is the quality of the presentations. The quality at TechCrunch Disrupt is certainly high, but the ones at DEMO are even more polished and seem to be better prepared. I guess that is logical if you pay so much money for a few minutes in the spot light.

Location wise Disrupt is cool because it is located in downtown San Francisco and it has some very good parties. On the other hand, DEMO is easier to reach by car (it’s a the Hyatt Regency Silicon Valley) or when you are not staying in SF itself – and you can easily park there as well.

And lastly, if you are a coffee addict like me it’s a pretty big con if there is no coffee available throughout the day, esp. if you are still a bit jet lagged. DEMO had coffee in the morning, but they took it away after the conference started. I solved it by making several trips to the hotel lobby and get my caffeine shots there at the hotel bar, but it feels awkward to have a conference without coffee.

This weekend I flew to California, and spent the weekend in Sonoma to (among others) look at some wineries. A couple of pictures from the short road trip.

The Golden Gate was still in the clouds in the morning, as usual this time of year.

By coincidence I saw a sign for the Kendall-Jackson winery along 101, so I went to check it out. Kendall-Jackson is one of my favorite Californian wine brands – I actually found one of their Grand Reserves last weekend in Xiamen.

The Tomato Festival was going on at Kendall-Jackson, which had been sold out for months. But I was lucky, one of their wine club members who overheard me telling the lady I had just flown in from China had extra VIP tickets and gave them to me for free (normal ticket price USD 65)! I even got extra tickets for wine, so I could have 10 glasses of their wines (I didn’t drink them all though). The Tomato Festival is really nice, which many local restaurants preparing their finest foods that you could all taste for free and of course all of the best Kendall-Jackson wines.

And all of that in the gardens of the Kendall-Jackson chateau:

Another good wine area in the Sonoma wine regio is Russian River. The closer you get to the coast the nicer the area gets, there are beautiful redwood forests covering the hills surrounding the Russian River. Very different from the wine hills just 15 miles to the East of it. This picture was taken in Monte Rio at the Russian River bridge.

From Monte Rio it’s a less than half hour drive to the Pacific coast, where the Russian River ends in the ocean. This picture was taken in Jenner, it reminded me of the Great Ocean Road close to Melbourne, Australia.

Further down Highway 1 the Pacific Ocean beaches are virtually deserted.

I ended the trip in Tiburon, where you have a great view over the bay to San Francisco and the Golden Gate bridge.