scales, robert scales

Cross-posted from: BBC Sport | Olympics | Beijing Diaries

Background: Raincity Studios CEO/Founder Robert Scales and Pres/Ambassador Kris Krug are on the ground in Beijing to document and study the 2008 edition of the Olympic Games. They are publishing dispatches to a variety of news outlets including the venerable BBC. Here's Scales' first installment of his Olympic diary.

ROBERT SCALES, MONTREAL, CANADA

Robert runs a web development company based in Canada

Citizens On the Ground

Raincity Studios Sino-Away-Squad of Scales and KK, are on the ground in Beijing to cover and participate in the Olympic experience as citizen journalism, technology experts, social pundits and cultural ambassadors.

The Glimmer Twins' tasks are diverse and their methods varied so here's a preview:

• participating in the 9th International Symposium on Olympic Studies, in Beijing, August 5-7 with Olympic scholar Dr. Andy Miah's
• documenting the scene for crowd-sourced new site: Now Public, Vancouver radio station: Crave 95, and BBC Interactive - among other media outlets



• shooting Creative Commons licensed photos delivered via Flickr
• extolling about the new, improved Bryght web community hosting product - available in free, cheap or fancy varieties
• meeting up with prospective clients to extol Raincity Studios' status as an approved weblog vendor for Vancouver/Whistler 2010
• cheering for Team Canada at the Archery, Fencing, Women's Softball, BMX and more summer games sports
• spreading international goodwill in the fun-loving/hard-working style they honed whilst at the Torino 2008 Winter Games.

Jacob Redding, John Zhu, and I ran this session. The three of us talked about China, the Drupal project, and why the Open Source community makes so much sense in the Chinese environment.

There is a curious problem with licensing in China. Licenses for software (like Windows for example) are often ignored. There is a brisk trade in illegal copies making it nearly impossible to sell people legitimate licenses. The GPL is perfect in this circumstance. You can't pirate something that is free to be downloaded. Some of this is due to language. The Chinese tend to create a duplicate of many kinds of services--like a Chinese clone of YouTube. There is even a fork of PHP written in Chinese. But Drupal's internationalization makes this kind of duplication meaningless. You don't have to recreate the system from scratch. There is no need to fork and there is no need to pirate.

The 1.3 Billion Person Myth

Sometimes the concept of a 1.3 billion person market, ready to be tapped, makes it into presentations and conversations. This is largely a myth due to the fact only roughly 260 million people have Internet access which shrinks the market to about the size of the US or Western Europe.

Last weekend I was blessed with an amazing opportunity to photograph His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

HHDL was in Vancouver for the innoguration of the World Center for Peace and speaking about Cultivating Happiness to a large crowd at GM Place.

Armed with my trusty Canon and some of the lenses I share with my great friend kk, I had the amazing opportunity to snap some pictures during the event.

Before the event, the Dalai Lama was presented with an Honorary Canadian Citizenship (only the 3rd to be given in the history of Canada)

September China Program Finalized

The September China trip is only a few weeks away. All of the details have been finalized and hotels and plane tickets have been booked. The crew will be making stops in Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou, meeting with members of the business community and political figures. There is still time to jump on board if you have not already done so and join the team of business leaders who are making the trek. This is an opportunity of a lifetime to be a part of such a well orchestrated and strategic event. To find out more about upcoming Business Visit Programs in Beijing please, click here

Click here to Register for the September Program.

China Access 2008 is a strategic international business marketing and partnering initiative that has been consciously structured to help China better realize the unique economic development potential arising from Beijing’s hosting and staging of the 2008 Olympic Games.

The venture was publicly launched in Beijing by Vice Mayor Lu Hao in December 2004.

China Access 2008 will utilise the years leading up to the staging of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games to: