scales, robert scales

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.

Third time is a charm!

I am currently in Shanghai with kk, we are gearing up for our move here next year.

I should blog about that but not this time..

This is just a shoot at IMO the best Jazz base player on the planet. Not only can this master play a 5 strings base guitar like no others but he is the owner and creative mind behind one of the coolest jazz club in this city; JZ.

He's also running a cool private school..

Anyway, here's some of the shots that I took of him while we hang out earlier this week.

More news from the chinese front coming soon..

It was great to be part of the organizing team of the second Barcamp in Vancouver.

This is a shot of us sporting the "fuschia" shirts!

I did a session on open source business development, I am sure someone will write something on it and I'll cross link. I was under the impression that my topic would not attract many people and 30 minutes would suffice, silly me! Room two was packed and half-hour was a tad too short, it seemed we where just getting started!

I enjoyed KK's photo-walk and I managed to get a bunch of pictures.

A special shout to John for his iPhone for Canadians session, maybe the hi-light of my day! Yeah I know; geek!

Thanks to Jordan Behan for an exellent post. Like Roland, I just shamlesly reposted...

QUOTE

Barcamp Vancouver, the 2007 edition is fast approaching, so get ready to get your Barcamp on. Unless of course you’re not already signed up, because the pattern is full, Ghost Rider. The pattern is full.

This year’s Vancouver event is already well over-booked, with a waiting list of over 70 people! So this post is more for the folks who are already signed up to attend.

Those of you not in Vancouver are encouraged to search Barcamp.org for your local event, or find details at that same site about how you can organize and host your own. Take a cue from the likes of Kris Krug and Robert Scales, Vancouver’s own adopted sons, who are teaming up to plan Barcamp Shanghai and Barcamp Beijing. Leave it to them to return to the land of the Great Wall with their free-spirited, open-sourcedness to host an unconference in a place where free speech doesn’t even exist.

Kris has been bugging me for days about posting my traveling and event schedules.

For some reason, August and September are always busy months for us!

We decided to make our life a bit more complex this year and added a third barcamp on our list of events to organize...

Hopefully we'll post more details about each of these events coming over the next few months:

Gnomedex 7.0 - Four RCS staffers are heading down to Seattle to see Chris, Ponzi, Schlomo, Corey, Jacob and the rest of the geekospher.

Barcamp Vancouver - Vancouver's 2nd Barcamp is expecting to attract 180+ people. I've been helping with some of the organization and Raincity is sponsoring the event again this year. I am looking forward to kk's photcamp and photowalk.

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: