Shanghai Biz-Trip Observations

I’m in Shanghai showing NthCode Player to some connectors and potential partners. The meetings have gone well so far — I’m able to take people through a guided tour of our Alpha release running on the BeagleBoard, and it just works.  And, oh-my-God, does it just work … and work … and work.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still an alpha with rough spots that need to be worked out, but once I take people through a presentation, and then show it actually working on a real embedded device, I get very few ‘Yeah, but…’ statements. Instead things have quickly turned to “How do we get this running on our hardware,” and “Here are some people you should talk to.” A relief, to be sure.

I’m also getting a better hang on high-tech sales — show up prepared, smile, note questions you don’t have answers to, follow-up in time, and just keep moving things forward. I’ll claim to have it actually figured it out once I get a few signed contracts. That will hopefully soon.

In the meantime, I have a few notes about Shanghai:

First, I’ve traditionally been an anti-Shanghai expat living in Beijing (”Shanghai?  You mean the Houston of the East?”)  I think, after the past few days, I’ve decided to chill a little on that and be a bit more open-minded.

Why? Well, the city has changed since I first visited as a backpacker in 2000 (or even 2003 when I last spent any long amount of time here).  It used to be that Pudong, the area across the river from Shanghai’s Bund was sparsely populated and dead at night.  And I was underwhelmed with Shanghai’s so-called modernity.

This time, from the first-class table of the Vue Bar on the 32nd floor of the Hyatt on the Bund, I could see that Pudong has filled out; the developers have connected the dots over there. I also went to Xin Tiandi for drinks, and, I’m sorry to say, while Beijing has a few bars that would be right at home in Xin Tiandi, there is just no one area in Beijing that goes as high on the swank scale.

I’ve also changed insomuch as I’ve come to understand that in a city of 10 million people — whether Beijing, Shanghai, or New York — there is bound to be so much diversity and so many broad-based opportunities, that you’ll always be able to find people and activities that can make you happy.  And it definitely helps that I have some friends here from Beijing who have kindly showed me around.

Oh, and 小笼包 (Xiao long bao, steamed soup-filled dumplings), a Shanghai specialty, are just little nuggets of mmm-mmm awesomeness.

Still, Beijing is home  I’ll be glad to be back there Wednesday night and working with the team on Thursday.  Because we do have lots to do between now and the next alpha.