World Wide Patent Search: The Journey Begins

Bye!

2009-09-08T17:29:00.002+01:00

So that’s it, I’m coming home! I’m sat on the floor in Beijing International Airport – there are barely any chairs here, I don’t know why – having one final look around me at China.

It’s feels as though it’s gone so quickly, although halfway through my Mandarin course I felt like I wouldn’t be leaving China for years. Not in the good way, either. But overall I’m so glad I came, China is a fascinating, complicated place so different from home and I’ve learnt so much in a very short space of time. Although I don’t really harbour any secret desire to run away and live in China or anything like that, it’s very clear to me that in the future China will play an important role in all of our lives. So, I’m grateful of the chance to understand the nation and its culture in a way that most people will never get. And of course, I’ve picked up loads of useful tips for our clients at Innovate Product Design!

On the whole, I’m sad to be leaving but happy to be coming home. See you in England!

ignorance = virtue?!

2009-09-08T17:27:00.001+01:00

Today we visited the hometown and grave of Confucius, a Chinese philosopher whose teachings have shaped Chinese life and culture for thousands of years. To try to understand Chinese culture without understanding Confucianism isn’t just silly, it’s practically impossible.

His teachings constitute an entire ideological system and a way of life, with discussions on everything from social order and education to personal behaviour and relationships between family members. In terms of business, this has led to the development of a more strictly hierarchical system of organisation within companies than we are used to in the West. Based on the principal of ‘filial piety’ whereby children should give the utmost respect to their parents and elders, the positions and duties of ‘managing director’, ‘team leader’ and ‘administrator’ for example are adhered to much more closely and those in subordinate positions must accept the decisions and actions of those above them in the hierarchy.

Also, Confucius felt that the only virtuous women were ignorant ones – I’m officially not a fan.

There are so many differences like this between China and the UK and with business relationships between the two countries growing all the time, it’s really important to be aware of them. Hopefully I’ll be able to pass some of these little bits back to our clients at Innovate Product Design.

Ni hao! Wo jiao aimi

2009-09-08T17:24:00.001+01:00

While I’m here in China, I have three and a half hours of language classes every morning. Learning Mandarin might be the most difficult thing I’ve ever attempted in my (admittedly short) life.

First of all, the pronunciation is different to anything you’ll ever hear in Europe. Different letters combined make such random sounds, sounds I can’t even being to imagine making myself. The letter Q makes a ‘ch’ sound, the letter R makes a ‘zzz’ sound, E makes a ‘ue’ sound and so on. Once you’ve vaguely (and I mean vaguely) understood that, there are the four tones to contend with. In English we express emotion by changing the tone of our voice, for example, to ask a question our voices get higher at the end of the sentence. In Chinese, if you change the tone of your voice you change the meaning of the word you’re trying to say. So ‘ma’ said in one tone of voice means mother, but in another tone means donkey! Not a mistake I’d like to make.

If you can get through all that – and I still haven’t, to be honest – you can move on to the characters. For us Westerners there’s something called pinyin, which is where Chinese words are spelt sort-of phonetically in English letters. But that’s rarely used in China, it’s basically a learning aid, so you have to know the proper Chinese symbols for everything. There is no logic to these, or if there is I’m yet to find it. Some of them look like little pictures of what they mean, but not all of them. Some of them are several other characters stuck together. Some of them I swear are just squiggles.

I don’t think this would be too much of a problem in business – every manufacturer I’ve visited so far seems to have at least one person able to speak English. But when you’re in deepest darkest China, even the smallest tasks like ordering food in a restaurant become huge problems.
In some ways, I can’t wait to come home and know what I’m eating!

Innovate Product Design

kites <3

2009-09-08T17:23:00.000+01:00

Yesterday we visited the city of Weifang, famous for its traditional kites. They’re not like our version of kites, like the neon coloured things you can buy, but they make them in all sorts of shapes like butterflies, dragons, birds and they’re really beautiful. We even had a go at making one, but mine was a bit rubbish to be honest and I managed to rip it on the way to the coach!

Also famous in Weifang is Weichai Power, a diesel engine manufacturer serving all of China and many international locations as well. We had a short talk on the company, its origins and plans for expansion, and also had a poke around their factory shop floor. I was quite surprised as it was nothing like I expected. My dad is a director at a manufacturing company in England so I’ve been on the shop floor loads of times, and for some reason I was expecting a Chinese shop floor to be different somehow but it wasn’t. It was just like something we’d have in the UK, except perhaps even better (sorry Dad!). The factory complex was huge and the workers all seemed really happy, in nice, light, air conditioned buildings.

When I speak to clients at Innovate Product Design about their projects they’re often apprehensive about using Chinese manufacturers but from my experiences so far, they seem fantastic. The facilities are great, the people are helpful and often speak a high level of English and there don’t seem to be any real concerns over sweatshops and ethics and other issues that have been in the news a lot recently. In my opinion, anyone planning to use a Chinese manufacturer for their product should seriously consider visiting it if possible – maybe combine it with a holiday, Qingdao is a lovely beach resort! But if not, it seems to me that Chinese companies have a lot to offer us back at home.

argh, university flashbacks!

2009-09-08T17:22:00.002+01:00

Since graduating and starting work at Innovate Product Design earlier this year, I had forgotten what university lectures were like! But it all came flooding back today when we had two lectures on the economy of Shandong province, and ancient Chinese history and archaeology.

Economics isn’t really my “thing” – I’ve never been great with maths, but the lecture was actually pretty interesting. We were told that the main driver of Shandong’s economy is currently agriculture, and it is China’s ‘vegetable basket’, but this is quickly changing with secondary industry such as manufacturing becoming more dominant. Shandong has the second largest GDP of all of China’s provinces, and would make a great location for investment from abroad due to its rapid development.

The archaeology lecture was a bit confusing because China has so many different dynasties and cultures with different methods of social organisation and we covered a lot of material in a short time. But the main thing I took away from it is that Chinese history is completely different to European history in almost every way imaginable – people here have lived such different lives to those we are familiar with in the West and it’s easy to see why there is still such a huge gulf between our cultures. Though, being here I learn a little bit more every day to help me figure it all out!

do solar panels work if it's smoggy?

2009-09-08T17:20:00.001+01:00

I’ve just returned from my trip to Linuo Paradigma, and it was pretty impressive. We went to both the factory of Linuo Paradigma and the headquarters of their ‘mother’ company as they call them, Linuo Group. Everything in China seems to be huge, a bit like America I suppose (ironic?) and this company was no exception - it even had a museum and a lake for god’s sake!

Linuo Paradigma manufactures solar panels and is a joint venture between a Chinese company (Linuo) and a German company (Paradigma). I was lucky enough to chat with Jing Yuteng, Regional Manager for Asia Pacific, about how the companies successfully integrated despite their cultural differences. He believes that compromise is very important to make sure there’s a balance between German and Chinese values, taking the best bits from both to create a better business overall.

Based on this, it seems entirely feasible to me for British entrepreneurs, such as our clients at Innovate Product Design, to take full advantage of what China has to offer in terms of both manufacturing services and a huge new market to tap into. As China becomes a more dominant player on the world stage in years to come, I think we’ll see many more companies like Linuo Paradigma springing up combining the best of both the East and the West.

I've Arrived!

2009-09-08T17:18:00.001+01:00

I have finally arrived in China and managed to get my internet set up! The journey here was pretty tiring - 24 hours, 2 flights and 1 potential donkey burger as my main meal (?!). Everything is so different here. On my first day, I asked to have broadband access in my room and the sheer amount of red tape that had to be navigated was pretty daunting. At any UK university, you’d just find the right wireless network!

Almost all of these issues have been down to the language barrier. The area that I am visiting is a rapidly developing city with a huge manufacturing industry, but tourism here is practically non-existent so barely anyone speaks English. In similar places that I have visited, even if you don’t speak much of the local language you can try out some words or use gestures to communicate. The Chinese language is poles apart from anything spoken in Europe though, and gestures here often have entirely different meanings to those in the UK. And it is surprisingly difficult to act out “I need some mosquito repellent”!

Needless to say, the importance of really understanding a country’s cultural expectations and means of communication before attempting to expand a new product or business there has become pretty obvious to me! In a few days time, I will be visiting the factory of Linuo Paradigma, a joint German-Chinese company which manufactures solar panels. Hopefully, this will give me some idea of how previous companies have approached this in the past to become successful enterprises, invaluable advice to pass on to Innovate Product Design clients. I’ll write again after that.

What is this blog about?

2009-07-31T11:21:00.000+01:00

Hi! My name's Amy, and I'm a Project Researcher working for a UK design company called Innovate Product Design. Innovate specialise in helping individuals realise their inventions and new product ideas by guiding them through the processes of patenting and concept development. As a Project Researcher, my job is to conduct Worldwide Patent Searches on our clients' ideas to find out whether they have been patented before (hence the blog title!).

In August this year, I'll be jetting off to China for three weeks to learn about the country - its business, culture, customs and language. I'm lucky enough to be studying at Shandong University, based in Jinan, which is one of China's most prestigious universities.

View Larger Map?

China is fast becoming an important site of innovation and manufacturing and provides a vast market for new inventions. My plan is to meet representatives from local businesses and learn as much about Chinese commerce and culture as possible to pass on to Innovate clients.

While I'm away, I'll be blogging about what I'm up to and what I've learnt so you can keep up with me on here!