Re: First Point of Discussion

by Liu Yuxi Sat Sep 07, 2013 5:14 pm

The tolerance of making mistake is very limited in China, especially in the old days, so the risk of creative is larger than elsewhere. The long history Confucius philosophy teaches Chinese people not to be too outstanding or different, so the majority would not have the will to create. Also due the fast economic growth in China in the past 30 years, it makes people feel it is too slow to create a new idea, people prefer to copy an exist idea and feed this enormous market, this domestic market is big enough to satisfy so many non-creative business. Over all, people afraid to take the risk of creative, and the market did accept the non-creative business, so people are not eager to create.

But since the future market is no longer that easy to accept the non-creative business, the transformation is necessary. The first thing needs to transform is the way of thinking, people need to realize that creativity is a surviving skill, without that, business would not last. Second, the government should provide a more tolerant environment to give people space to create, to try, to fail, try again and finally coming to success.

by bessiezhao Sat Sep 07, 2013 6:03 pm

Liu Yuxi wrote:"The tolerance of making mistake is very limited in China, especially in the old days, so the risk of creative is larger than elsewhere. The long history Confucius philosophy teaches Chinese people not to be too outstanding or different, so the majority would not have the will to create. Also due the fast economic growth in China in the past 30 years, it makes people feel it is too slow to create a new idea, people prefer to copy an exist idea and feed this enormous market, this domestic market is big enough to satisfy so many non-creative business. Over all, people afraid to take the risk of creative, and the market did accept the non-creative business, so people are not eager to create.

But since the future market is no longer that easy to accept the non-creative business, the transformation is necessary. The first thing needs to transform is the way of thinking, people need to realize that creativity is a surviving skill, without that, business would not last. Second, the government should provide a more tolerant environment to give people space to create, to try, to fail, try again and finally coming to success."

Insightful! I also agree that after 30 years fast growth, it is not easy for the country to slow down, adapt to the relative time consuming creative industry. It requires a lot of patience for a new idea finally turns to a physical new product. If government still puts high GDP growth rate as top achievement target, which will only cause more barrier for the transformation.

GB Zhao Jianrong 2013970474

by 斯大林黛玉 Sat Sep 07, 2013 6:25 pm

Sorry for being late to get there. As to me, creative business means a lot, talent, professional skills, comfortable working conditions, and the most important-passion of the work. In the textbook, there was something inspired me, "Instead of considering jobs at which you excel, think instead about jobs that match your deeply embedded life interests", Do not talk too big about creative business,find the right industry, the right position, which can make you be yourself.

张明雪 GB 2013960625

by 2013968768 Sophie Zhang Sat Sep 07, 2013 6:59 pm

The last two decades have witnessed China's the finest period of development in terms of speed, balance and stability. However, owing to the nation's unique process of industrialization, new conflicts and problems have emerged, disparities in income and living standards will pose a new challenge to China's economic and social development.

by Carey NI Wenle 2013968598 Sat Sep 07, 2013 8:14 pm

Recently I have read an article discussing the root causes to the current social and economical issues in China. In the article, the author leans to the idea that it is not the current political system but the hectic transformation undertaken by the Chinese society from peasant economy to market economy that brought up various unwanted by-products. Lack of one's own judgement, i.e. group psychology is one of them. When people are not feeling safe, and afraid of being deprived of something, they try to play safe just like everyone else does. If we look back into history, Chinese people have gone through many natural or man-made disasters that washed away people's wealth so quickly that people could not possibly control their fate. On and on, people tend to lose confidence in one's power of changing the situation and become fatalist. When people try to make do with things, they will hardly create something better. In a word, Chinese people are not incentivized to be creative.
Besides, being creative and actually making things happen tends to be a long process which involves huge amount of devotion and dedication yet without guarantee of success. This, in modern time, means a large opportunity cost. While others could easily make things out of owning resources or authority quickly, people will only dive into creative industries if only they prove fruitful in a short time. Pragmatism is always a hinder in China.
Having said that, we Chinese are good at studying and mastering things. With the vast knowledge we accumulate over the years, we do have the foundation to build up something from it yet above it. Because creativity does not come out of the blue, we are prepared for the breakthrough when we see the chance and have the proper encouragement. That leads me to the topic of favorable market environment and general beliefs amongst people toward being novel. An attitude that tolerates failures is good for creative industries. As for market environment, my fellow classmates have illustrated enough such as IPR and etc. I can't agree more.
These are just my two cents.

GB, NI Wenle, 2013968598

by tracy_sy Sun Sep 08, 2013 5:14 pm

Creativity is one of the nature of human. It is always said that pearls are everywhere but not the same eyes.
I assure there exists plenty of talents have the capability to dedicate to creative industry. Nowadays, lack of the concerned platform or opportunity to show them. Hence, one of the challenges of transformation, I suppose, is to set up the convinced agency. It has the responsbility to connect talents with enterprises, or even support the talents to establish his own career directly.

Sunying 2013968641

by Barry Yang 2013970307 Sun Sep 08, 2013 5:21 pm

Agree with Rocky's comments of legal problem that was specified in a very detailed manner. Rather than that, maybe creative industries also depend on creative talents, but China of course is not lack of really creative talents as for its huge talent pool even with many western education background and oversea working experience talents. And lack of a mechanism of freedom of thinking and doing business in China mainly contribute the barriers, like that: a). Most of time it's just the Leaders' thinking, professionals just follow without the opportunity to contribute, as they fear to challenge the leader's viewpoints; b).There are many approval processes before starting a business legally especially for some new businesses in emerging industries.

by YinyijiaGB Sun Sep 08, 2013 5:31 pm

"Ideas are just like plague". When it is good and suits goverment's need, everything is fine. But when it requires some kind of identification. Who will be the main force to guide the 800 million farmers to pick the good out of evil, whose education level is comparatively low.

Society stable is still important than sustainable economic development. Some creative industries are mainly government driven businesses. A few things we can judge from their previous actions.

1. New media can only be played by "BIG PLAYER", like weibo ,weixin can only be operated by sina, tencent. If you knew wangxin and his story...
2. Gradually open certain some industries, like the new policy in free trade zone for "video game" industry in Shanghai, But SLOWLY...
3. We see the movie rating system will boost the movie industry a lot. But it won't come at least in recent years.
4. Publishing, TV, radio, Music are the same, still need tight sensorship
5. Those promising but still weak industries, just protect and stimulate them from policy level.
6. Those are matured enough, just open them to the oversea investors.

Please correct me if I am wrong. Smile

by Sunny Xia Sun Sep 08, 2013 6:29 pm

I am agree with most of our classmate have already mentioned above. From my part, I summarized as followings:

1) Lack of culture to encourange creativity in the company.
2) Company don't want to take the risk to creativity.
3) Lack of prection of the creativity from goverment.

Xia Suqin 2013GB

by MaggieW Mon Sep 09, 2013 7:00 am

I think one main barrier is the current Chinese education methodolog. Nowadays teachers are still trying to force feed knowledges to students. And students have to put the expected answeres on the exam papers to be able to get high score, which can lead them to the best universities in China. This practice significantly discourage diversity and largely reduce younsters' passion for innovation, which make them reluctant to be creative when they grow up. I think the transformation of Chinese education system is the prerequisite of the development of Chinese creative industries.

Qihua Wang, 2010960686

by Isaac_li Tue Sep 10, 2013 6:50 am

I want to anlyze it from admistration point instead of education or other environment factors. There is a serious problem in our research institute -- Admistrators lead experts. The performance depends on the feeling of the leader.Uunder this circustance, the real researchers are paid very little, but the leaders earn a lot of money even having no contribution to research. Normally the top researchers are not good at dealling with complicated relations with others, which result in the poverty of so they have to go abroad like US consequently as anyone needs monney at least to live a decent life. The administration and rating system doesn't encourage innovation, so the whole society is lead to wrong direction --- copy which is much easier than innovation.

by Isaac_li Tue Sep 10, 2013 6:51 am

Isaac Li / Lixiaodong 2013960443

by Wang Jue 2012962107 Tue Sep 10, 2013 9:49 am

The main barrier of creative industries is the culture, education system and consumers' behaviors

1) Culture
Each person was born with curiosity and has the nature to learn new things. But as time goes by, when Chinese children were brought up, they were mentioned not to be different, thinking the same, acting the same with the other people. To be average is not a bad thing, otherwise you will not be easily accepted by the majority. That's some root depth in our culture which does not encourage innovation.

2) Education
I don't think most teachers are well trained to help the new generation to be more creative. In contrary, they want every child to do the same for easy management. Only a few of the faculty are trying to do some changes in education system. But that's far not enough.

3) Consumers' behaviors
For the lack of IP awareness, many consumers don't recognize the value of innovation. They prefer to buy cheaper thing instead, which make some creative industry cannot get health cash flow to develop.

by 2013960194_Frank_Ma Tue Sep 10, 2013 2:59 pm

Everyone is very aware of the barriers as culter,education; but I think another very important thing is the economic enviroment in China now. Since China has rapid grown from a very poor country to the second biggest economy of the world. People are used to make "quick" money and "easy" money. However, creativity industry normally needs a relatively long development period with limited outcome. Individauls,companies,goverments are so eager to be sucessful that few of them are willing to bear the long,lonely,no/little return R&D period. And its difficult for someone with extreamly briliant ideas to find investments to turn the creative ideas into products.
Ma Minghui/2013960194

by Brenda Zhao (2013960663) Wed Sep 11, 2013 12:16 pm

Xiaomi, founded in 2010, is a mobile internet company dedicated to creating an all aspect user experience. You can find its introduction from their official website.

I would like to indicate that Xiaomi is one of the most creative enterprises in China. Although its product looks like iPhone, it contains many special technologies in it. As Xiaomi is one of our clients, we are handling many patent application for them. This enterprise pays a lot of attention on IPR. They know not only how to invent a technology, but also how to protect it as well.

David Dong wrote:I am sorry that I am not familiar with xiaomi. Would you mind introduce to me what kind of creativity does Xiaomi had?
thanks

Lin Haiping wrote:Thanks for a clear-thinking mindmap from David Dong. But I find it's a little bit hard for me to agree with you. This is an open-mind discussion, like a brainstorm, I suggest that we could share some more cases and feelings with each other, rather than rush to give conclusive comments.

As all view-points mentioned,we are focusing on problems in Chinese market and tending to think that most of chanllenges come from the poor environment(politicis and law、society、education and so on）.

After considering somewhile, I would like to start a discussion about such a case for your reference.
Why is Xiaomi famously regarded as China's Apple?
Meantime，Huawei and Zte ,the biggest two manufactures in Chinese mobile-phone market,why their products can not be reminiscent to the creative industry?(btw,Xiaomi can be row in the biggest five.)
Xiaomi's slogan is Just for the fans! When other Chinese companies keen to imitate others, Xiaomi put forward such a slogan. The slogan, in my opinion,is more like a question.What do fans want?
Wordings from Robert Dennard,is that create itself was a process of posing important questions and finding answers. Xiaomi has persevered in innovate its mobile phone's hardware and software.Both its machine performance and customer experience won the praises.
Look back to its rivals? To ask questions is the first step in creating, a lot of people and many companies are not even willing to take the first step to go.
Facing such a huge transformation in near future, the positioning of each industry(or company) itself is the most important,whether to become a creator beyond a producer or not?

In China we could also find a lot of similar cases.We may find that the environment is not the biggest barrier, chanllenges still come from our own hearts.
Are you willing to share some cases,discuss them and ask questions widely?
May we help ourselves to find out the answers or some hints about the barriers and challenges.

GB,Lin Haiping,2013970151

by daijun2013969504 Wed Sep 11, 2013 6:51 pm

In china traditional clulture,we consided mistakes are bad things.

When we are children, we had been educated that don't make mistakes or you will be punished by our Mom and father. In our traditional education systems, teachers continu solid the belif that misakes means punishement. In the society, our company do the same thing. So, as a result, we get dare to make any creative things because we dare to be pusnished. creativity means new,means something that can't be controled. In our mind, uncontroled means mistakes will be happen. so, do the same thing day and day bring the safty for us. creativity, forget about it.

To make any creativity, we need the spirit of exploring. The spirit of exploring made the west world to sail around the world from 17 century but the lack of the exploring spirit made china lock the door to the world.we fall behind!!!

Make creativity is like exploring, we don't know where to go. ok. chose a way and go ahead untill we are wrong. it dones't matter, the mistake means we should not go this way. let's continue to chose any way and continue go ahead. repeat such mistakes again and again, finally, we will find the the right way!! so, making mistakes is a necessary factor to get creativity.

let's use a positive attitude to look mistakes, not matter it be done by you or by others.

by Brenda Zhao (2013960663) Fri Sep 13, 2013 1:08 pm

Besides below points, I also want to add one more point - the support from China government.
I assume the support from the government, no matter what kind of support, that will be an important push force to the creativity. Looking back to Nokia, it was a small start-up business. The report submitted to the Finland government was not good enough to get the approval. However, Finland government didn't reject the propose. They offered the great support to Nokia. Then, Nokia created the miracle. To be honest, China government do offer some support to those creative enterprises. For example, enterprise will get reward if they apply PCT patent. That encourages more enterprises to create more wonderful products. Only the reward offering is not enough. China government should make more actions to encourage creativity. So, how to develop useful policy or other useful actions is an another challenge to us.

Brenda Zhao (2013960663) wrote:I would like to express my understanding of tow points of view which were mentioned above.

Firstly , Education, of course, is the long-time problem we need to face and solve. What we were educated was how to repeat doing exercises to get high scores in examinations. We put lots of time to practice the exam skills. Teachers don’t encourage creativity in the school. As a result, most of us get used to follow. Then, when we are employed, most of us work mindlessly and repetitively. It seems that following the action plan is always the right thing we need to do and seldom of us think about make our own action plan. Even though the action plans are made by ourselves, most of them are just created by modifying. Looking back for those who studied aboard, they were encourage to open their mind and develop creativity. I assume, that we have several Chinese-American Nobel winners is the best proof. So many Chinese talents are seeking to study and stay aboard. How to change our education system and how to keep talented peoples in China are one of the challenges we must meet.

Secondly, I want to talk about the IP (intellectual property) environment in China. Why Apple was created and developed so wonderfully in the States? An complete IP protect law system (such as AIA (American Invent Act)) and many operation organizations (such as ITC, USPTO) are the key to make this happen. It’s pity that “Copycat Culture” is still the main trend in China. In the past few years, we were smart at how to copy others or how to copycat others. We can find many Chinese “Pad” after iPad was introduced to the world by Apple. Lacking of creativity is one of the barrier we have. Of course, we are changing ourselves these years. We are happy to witness that government pays more and more attention to IP. ZTE and Huawei are always at the top tier of the list of patent applications in the world. How to protect the companies such as Huawei and ZTE, and how to encourage more ZTEs and Huaweis established in China are another challenge to Chinese government.

by simon_xmy2012967597 Thu Sep 19, 2013 5:02 am

The barriers and challenges of our government and system is basic problem for creative innovation in China due to conflicts between developping and the vested power group.

by Vickie_XU Mon Sep 30, 2013 9:30 am

Justin Wang wrote:They are the innovators who create the history.

I agree with most of the viewpoints discussed above including the problem of IPR, education, pressure of survival and so on. But, besides, I think another barrier of creativity in China is the Traditional Culture.

Chinese would more likely to be golden mean or middle in the crowds. We do not respect the "hero" or someone different so much compared with the westerners. Chinese people are taught that you should listen to your parents, teachers and leaders from childhood. China has over five-thousand-year history, in most of which, always, there are powerful and authoritative governors. So Chinese seem to be compliant and moderate. This is traditional Chinese culture and people respect it. I also respect it because I am one of them. But the problem is that---great innovators always have distinct characters and be "different" from others. They are not willing to accept the "arrangement" and "rules" of society, just like Bill Gates who quited his study from Harvard and started another life. So what can we do? We have to CHANGE to some extent. IT IS NOT WRITTEN. We shall encourage kids to challenge and ask why in our education. We shall applaud to those who have opinions of their own even they are "ridiculous" and "stupid". More important, every one of us shall learn to do and think different in our own individual life.

GB, WANG Zhaobo, 2013970280

Fully agree with Zhaobo, traditional Chinese Cultures shape most of our thinking mode. It is very interesting to see the phenomenon "Collectivism vs. Individualism". We often see in a meeting room, the westerns are more self-performance oriented. They challenged or are challenged by their bosses and colleagues. What happened in our Chinese side, most of the case is the meeting is peacefully ended with "Nihao Wohao". However, The creativity requires you perceive those others cannot perceive. More than 90% of the masters see things differently than the majorities. For an innovative society, ideas come first. How your think will differ your life and life around.

by Vickie_XU Mon Sep 30, 2013 9:34 am

Justin Wang wrote:They are the innovators who create the history.

I agree with most of the viewpoints discussed above including the problem of IPR, education, pressure of survival and so on. But, besides, I think another barrier of creativity in China is the Traditional Culture.

Chinese would more likely to be golden mean or middle in the crowds. We do not respect the "hero" or someone different so much compared with the westerners. Chinese people are taught that you should listen to your parents, teachers and leaders from childhood. China has over five-thousand-year history, in most of which, always, there are powerful and authoritative governors. So Chinese seem to be compliant and moderate. This is traditional Chinese culture and people respect it. I also respect it because I am one of them. But the problem is that---great innovators always have distinct characters and be "different" from others. They are not willing to accept the "arrangement" and "rules" of society, just like Bill Gates who quited his study from Harvard and started another life. So what can we do? We have to CHANGE to some extent. IT IS NOT WRITTEN. We shall encourage kids to challenge and ask why in our education. We shall applaud to those who have opinions of their own even they are "ridiculous" and "stupid". More important, every one of us shall learn to do and think different in our own individual life.

GB, WANG Zhaobo, 2013970280

Fully agree with Zhaobo, traditional Chinese Cultures shape most of our thinking mode. It is very interesting to see the phenomenon "Collectivism vs. Individualism". We often see in a meeting room, the westerns are more self-performance oriented. They challenged or are challenged by their bosses and colleagues. What happened in our Chinese side, most of the case is the meeting is peacefully ended with "Nihao Wohao". However, The creativity requires you perceive those others cannot perceive. More than 90% of the masters see things differently than the majorities. For an innovative society, ideas come first. How your think will differ your life and life around.

GB, XU Yaqin, 2013990091

by bessiezhao Mon Oct 07, 2013 10:13 am

Dr. Ali wrote:Virtually, most of us will pray with you.

There's always an invisible hand of God. Cross the bridge when we come to it.

Agree, that's destiny:) affraid

by Boris Li Mon Oct 07, 2013 11:04 am

Many viewpoints on barriers of creativity were input; I found that the word- Education- was mentioned several times. In last lecture by Ali, we understood that education means make us know "What", "How" and "Why".

Did our current education make student learn about "Why", short answer is "No". So I would propose to dig more into the topic Why “Why” is lack in our education?

As mentioned by some classmate, we are told to follow the action prepared by teachers or parents. When we followed, we are focusing on the score too much without positive thinking about why we should follow. And then we are used to follow, follow and follow, which result in some kind of COPIES.

Then why we did not say “no” to follow? Because our teachers or parents are always right just like “bosses” who own the final jurisdiction even you challenge… I think some one would treat it as “traditional culture”. This culture accompanied us since we born, which means no room for us to escape but dream only to free from it.

When grow up to found such situation and also own the jurisdiction to change it, we already were “institutionalized” and lived in our burbles.

Anyway, I think we are the way the right direction when educated our next generation who we hope to provide more freedom for them to think, to plan and to do it… We are looking forward to next creative generation in coming 2 decades.

GB 2013970149 Li Guo

by Lin Zhi Cong Mon Oct 07, 2013 11:29 am

As is witnessed by the world, China has sustained fast economic growth in the last 10 years. However, during the development, it has also accumulated a lot of problems, such as:over- dependency on foreign trade;government investment still accounts a lot in the GDP growth;Social welfare system is not so fair and sound. These are all the barries for economic transformation.

Last month, China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone has offically announced, I think it could be the first step to overcoming these barries and challenges, with the deepening of the reform, the pace for economic tranformation will be more and more quickly... What do you think about it my buddies? 小伙伴们怎么看啊 Smile

2013GB Lin Zhi Cong 2013970163

by bessiezhao Mon Oct 07, 2013 11:41 am

Above, seems we only discussed the barriers inside of China, but it just came to my mind that there could be some other factors outside of China hinder such transformation. Recently we are hearing more and more stories that many MNC are relocating their key manufacturing back to their western home countries, e.g., Caterpillar, GE and Ford. One reason for this move is because the wage gap between China and developed countries such as United States keeps shrinking and shrinking. If this trend continues, there is no doubt that China will lose its attraction to FDI, which definitely will give a lot of pressure on Chinese economy development (According to a research,1% increase in FDI would result in 0.07% increase in GDP of China). While the incubation period for creative industries normally takes longer than other industries, even China has that patience to wait for the long incubation, China may doesn’t have enough fund to support the industry development.

Also, western countries have strong power to develop technology, and normally advanced technology breakthrough happens in those countries, eg, 3D printer technology, which is said will change the world in the near future. All of these will only make China lag behind even further, hence hinders development China creative industries as development of many of creative industries e.g, animation industry, relies heavily on technology development.

This is just my preliminary thought, hope it can lead to more discussion on this aspect.

GB Zhao Jianrong 2013970474

by bessiezhao Mon Oct 07, 2013 11:50 am

Lin Zhi Cong wrote:As is witnessed by the world, China has sustained fast economic growth in the last 10 years. However, during the development, it has also accumulated a lot of problems, such as:over- dependency on foreign trade;government investment still accounts a lot in the GDP growth;Social welfare system is not so fair and sound. These are all the barries for economic transformation.

Last month, China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone has offically announced, I think it could be the first step to overcoming these barries and challenges, with the deepening of the reform, the pace for economic tranformation will be more and more quickly... What do you think about it my buddies? 小伙伴们怎么看啊

2013GB Lin Zhi Cong 2013970163

China Pilot Free Trade zone is a hint that China is open to financial reforms and economic experimentation, which is good, just hope it can bring opportunities to creative industries! Fingers crossed! bounce

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First Point of Discussion