While messages from the coronavirus are mixed, to put it mildly, the current economic crash course might only be over by April/May, in the most optimistic scenario. Numbers of infected people and deaths by COVID-19 still vary to much to support any scenario at this stage, while it is also unclear whether the rest of the world can contain the virus.

Footage from metro subways still show empty carriages, as the central government tries to encouraged migrant workers to return to their workplaces, local governments – including the big cities –  advise returning migrants to put themselves in a social quarantine for two weeks to be sure they do not carry the virus. The dilemma is obvious: different government make different choices when it come to prevent major economic damage or keeping their cities save from the virus. Read More →

Economic damage to China and the global economy has been limited up to now as two weeks in the Coronavirus crisis were anyway a holiday, and a week extension was doable. Apart from the consumption industries who go a firm hit during lunar festival, expectations were high most of the manufacturing and services would resume on February 10, although our event industry was expected to see longer delays as international flights, traffic and other operations need likely months to recover.Read More →

China is not yet one week back from lunar holidays, and the fallout of the coronavirus is not yet clear. We have seen major events being relocated, delayed or even cancelled, speakers being stuck inside or outside China, and potential audiences unable to move around. Meanwhile we are exploring an alternative option, that might help some event organizators: follow the lead from China, and get your speaker online.

Even when the virus might reduce its destructive path over the next two weeks, resuming events might be affected till the end of April, early May. Those are – with June – our most busy months in helping event organizers to get the right speakers in place, before the traditional summer break kicks in.Read More →

China’ struggle against the coronavirus has been on the front pages worldwide on the past weeks. Western CEO’s of companies with operations in China have been calling for calm and try to convince their audiences all is well for those operations. The question is whether that is more than wishful thinking.

China has been into lunar festival mode over the past weeks and all offices and factories would have been closed anyway. Damage might have been obvious in the consumer industry as even outside Wuhan many inhabitants kept off the streets. But the major question is now, as the lunar festival holidays end, whether China’s massive work force returns to their workplaces.Read More →

Under normal circumstances we would now slowly move out of the hibernation of the lunar festival activities. But the coronavirus has made 2020 all different from normal. The virus is still spreading, large parts of China have come to a standstill and this week many of the rail and flight connections have been cancelled or limited at best.

Meetings have been cancelled, relocated and – to stay close to our core business – rosters for speakers have been rescheduled. While the effects of the virus are still developing, many expect the effects to be felt at least till April, and perhaps longer.Read More →

The State Council has announced it will extend the lunar festival holidays till February 2, while more extensions are not excluded as more information on the Wuhan virus emerges. The activities of the China Speakers Bureau in China itself are limited, but we will also take the extension into account. Shanghai has announced an extension till February 9, according to a Facebook post by Rich Brubaker.Read More →

We are setting up our WeChat work account, and up to now pleasantly surprised. Service looks solid and – while the basic setup is in Chinese – translation service works excellent, so also for non-Chinese speakers the instructions are very doable. Customer service is also very active, although outside the regular office hours in China, you might have to bear a chat robot.

If you want to join our journey at this upcoming global social platform, you can download the software best here. The link below you can use to join our account. Officially WeChat work has started as a service for larger companies to communicate with their employees, but it looks like we can also sign up our larger network at this stage.Read More →

Tencent’s WeChat Work has been rolling out new features that might – or might not – offer also new opportunities to the China Speakers Bureau. Because of our focus on organizing established China experts for a global market, we used those social media platforms that focused on a global audience: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. But when WeChat is joining those global forces: we should not ignore that development.Read More →

2019 is ending and we have some interesting trends to observe. In the China-related speakers’ business, we saw an encouraging expansion beyond the usual suspects: the US, Western Europe and developed parts of Asia. This year we dealt more than ever with Latin America, South Africa, Eastern Europe and last night Ian Johnson returned from a successful trip to Abu Dhabi, where he spoke for the Emirates Center For Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR).Read More →

2019 is nearing its end, and some of our speakers look back. Arnold Ma, CEO of Qumin, got some raving reviews of speeches he gave this year, and he would like to share. We gladly support him in sharing those client views with you.Read More →