Searching For China Innovation. Don't Go Looking In Federal Way.
David Wolf of Silicon Hutong has a very thoughtful post up on innovation in China. The post is entitled "Searching for China's Soul of innovation," and it nicely takes us through China's interrupted history of innovation and posits whether China will become a great innovator again, what it might take for that to happen, and what that might mean if it does.
I agree with Wolf that China innovation is going to be with Chinese characteristics, not just some knock-off of US methods:
So much of what is written about China and innovation today, whether by foreign or Chinese observers, is patronizingly prescriptive. If China wants to innovate, it must imitate - it must recreate the conditions that exist in high-tech hothouses of Silicon Valley, Boston's Route 128 corridor, Austin, and Seattle. There is some truth in that, but there seems something unnatural about trying to graft San Jose onto Shanghai, or Federal Way onto Tianjin.* * * *
Perhaps the answer for China is to search for an answer to the independent innovation challenge in its own history, applying foreign lessons where appropriate.
Federal Way? Here in Seattle, Federal Way (a small city located between Seattle and Tacoma) is known more for its Wild Waves Theme Park and used car lots than for any innovation. Did you mean Redmond, home of Microsoft and many other tech companies?
http://www.chinalawblog.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.cgi/2881
Searching For China Innovation. Don't Go Looking In Federal Way.:
Comments
similarly, route 128 is known for car dealerships, not for tech companies. Did they mean perhaps 495, ancestral home of Digital and a crop of niche vertical companies?
Posted by: K | October 19, 2008 2:41 PM
Chinese companies HAVE innovated and executed. In the field of Internet entertainment, media and technology, Tencent created a new subscription-based model for communications in 1999. Then in 2002, Shanda successfully introduced and executed the online gaming model. This was followed by Giant Interactive which sold virtual goods in its game title, Zhengtu, and offered free gaming.
All three companies are public companies now.
If this isn't successful innovation followed by execution, then what is?
Posted by: Paul Denlinger | October 19, 2008 5:25 PM
Is the Deja Vu strip club still open in Federal Way? Maybe that's what's got the guy confused.
Posted by: Brendon Carr (Korea Law Blog) | October 24, 2008 12:30 AM
Mr. Carr,
I believe it was and still is in Tukwila. I know that only because I used to play on the same softball and volleyball team (we would win the lawyers' league in both sports EVERY year) as Mike Kenyon, who was constantly litigating against it on behalf of the City of Tukwila.
Posted by: Dan | October 24, 2008 12:47 AM