A few days ago, I came across a Chinese term “Guanxi” for building business relationship, which is very much in practice much the same way in India as well for many years and is termed as “Vyavahar”.

“Guanxi” is vital to any successful business strategy in China. “Guanxi” literally means “relationships”. In Chinese business world, it means network of relationships among different parties that work together in cooperation and support. It is also about exchanging favors, which are voluntary and which also include bringing gifts. In China it is the right “Guanxi” that ensures that business will be successful. By maintaining the right relationships (“Guanxi”), organizations can minimize the risks, barriers and open doors for doing business in China. The relationship does not have to be about money but about creating a trust factor. If a company promises something and delivers it as promised then they show trust and worthiness that will win them more business in the future. It is important to be reliable and dependable to strengthen the relationship. Since “Guanxi” and relationship could function as an information network, companies with wide “Guanxi” and relationship networks often have much higher performance than companies with little or no relationship.

But the west has a total different take on this, and the personal relationships are said not to be mixed with professional relationships. But, at the core, still business relationships are build on knowledge, know-how and trust. And that trust comes from building relationships, and more so on the professional front in the west as oppose to building a personal one. Nothing comes cheap, and so are the business relationships as well. What’s your take on all this?

A few days ago, I came across a Chinese term “Guanxi” for building business relationship, which is very much in practice much the same way in India as well for many years and is termed as “Vyavahar”.

“Guanxi” is vital to any successful business strategy in China. “Guanxi” literally means “relationships”. In Chinese business world, it means network of relationships among different parties that work together in cooperation and support. It is also about exchanging favors, which are voluntary and which also include bringing gifts. In China it is the right “Guanxi” that ensures that business will be successful. By maintaining the right relationships (“Guanxi”), organizations can minimize the risks, barriers and open doors for doing business in China. The relationship does not have to be about money but about creating a trust factor. If a company promises something and delivers it as promised then they show trust and worthiness that will win them more business in the future. It is important to be reliable and dependable to strengthen the relationship. Since “Guanxi” and relationship could function as an information network, companies with wide “Guanxi” and relationship networks often have much higher performance than companies with little or no relationship.

But the west has a total different take on this, and the personal relationships are said not to be mixed with professional relationships. But, at the core, still business relationships are build on knowledge, know-how and trust. And that trust comes from building relationships, and more so on the professional front in the west as oppose to building a personal one. Nothing comes cheap, and so are the business relationships as well. What’s your take on all this?

© Manoj Khanna/Open Source World/rapidblog.com 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009
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I keep hearing that networking is a crucial element for any business or consultant to survive and thrive. And then I see a lot of ‘invasion’ and ‘information overload’ in the form of pointless and useless updates, who’s connected to who, tons of forum posts, etc. etc. And all this makes me think, do I really want all this hassle in order to be able to grow my business or network? Haven’t we gone from a ‘simplinostic’ to a very-nostalgic form of network communication? Who’s got the time to skim through all this information floating on the world wide web or the clutter being collected in my inbox every hour? Do I really want to follow someone on Twitter just to find out they landed in Chicago from their nice-weekend getaway trip to Miami? Really? How can we simplify this network exchange? How can we make it so easy for a busy entrepreneur so its easier to live a normal life for him or her? Aren’t we concerned where we are headed? Aren’t we concerned about this information overload?

Gone are the days when ignorance was a bliss. Today its a curse. But why so? Why are you reading this anyway? What’s it to you? How did you get here anyway? Just curious. 🙂

I keep hearing that networking is a crucial element for any business or consultant to survive and thrive. And then I see a lot of ‘invasion’ and ‘information overload’ in the form of pointless and useless updates, who’s connected to who, tons of forum posts, etc. etc. And all this makes me think, do I really want all this hassle in order to be able to grow my business or network? Haven’t we gone from a ‘simplinostic’ to a very-nostalgic form of network communication? Who’s got the time to skim through all this information floating on the world wide web or the clutter being collected in my inbox every hour? Do I really want to follow someone on Twitter just to find out they landed in Chicago from their nice-weekend getaway trip to Miami? Really? How can we simplify this network exchange? How can we make it so easy for a busy entrepreneur so its easier to live a normal life for him or her? Aren’t we concerned where we are headed? Aren’t we concerned about this information overload?

Gone are the days when ignorance was a bliss. Today its a curse. But why so? Why are you reading this anyway? What’s it to you? How did you get here anyway? Just curious. 🙂

© Manoj Khanna/Open Source World/rapidblog.com 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009
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I’d been super buried in stuff which is beyond belief, and lately I realized I didn’t have any means to connect or share with tech community at all. Soon after I converted my regular blog rapidblog.com into rapidBOOKS LP, I’d been struggling with the idea of where to post. And yes, I had this domain for a quite sometime now and why not put it to use, and ultimately this is my name and my blog! Duh!

I hope to write here regularly if not daily or weekly, and post some meaningful content and not just my rants. 🙂

Have a great week everyone!

I’d been super buried in stuff which is beyond belief, and lately I realized I didn’t have any means to connect or share with tech community at all. Soon after I converted my regular blog rapidblog.com into rapidBOOKS LP, I’d been struggling with the idea of where to post. And yes, I had this domain for a quite sometime now and why not put it to use, and ultimately this is my name and my blog! Duh!

I hope to write here regularly if not daily or weekly, and post some meaningful content and not just my rants. 🙂

Have a great week everyone!

© Manoj Khanna/Open Source World/rapidblog.com 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009
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Recently the organizing committee put together a sponsorship package for the event, and I think this is the best way to describe this event –

COSSFest 2007 is an exposition of open source technologies, welcoming new voices, tools and projects that will accompany established operating systems, platforms, languages and applications that started the open source movement. The beginning collaboration between two user groups and post-secondary education has been expanded to include new partners in making this event the biggest free technology event in Calgary.

COSSFest is the place for the open source community and their supporters to gather, exchange ideas and gain momentum. It is also a place for enterprise developers and managers to see and hear about competitive advantage in using open source technology. It is an opportunity to learn from and meet with users of open source who could profoundly affect Information Technology strategy in your organization.

There are already very interesting tracks and sessions confirmed for this event, ranging from Web 2.0, Collaborative frameworks to Ruby on Rails, and areas covering Linux. It’ll be fun to watch coming all this together on the event day. There are many things lined up for next couple of weeks. It is going to be very busy as we approach the event day.

Recently the organizing committee put together a sponsorship package for the event, and I think this is the best way to describe this event –

COSSFest 2007 is an exposition of open source technologies, welcoming new voices, tools and projects that will accompany established operating systems, platforms, languages and applications that started the open source movement. The beginning collaboration between two user groups and post-secondary education has been expanded to include new partners in making this event the biggest free technology event in Calgary.

COSSFest is the place for the open source community and their supporters to gather, exchange ideas and gain momentum. It is also a place for enterprise developers and managers to see and hear about competitive advantage in using open source technology. It is an opportunity to learn from and meet with users of open source who could profoundly affect Information Technology strategy in your organization.

There are already very interesting tracks and sessions confirmed for this event, ranging from Web 2.0, Collaborative frameworks to Ruby on Rails, and areas covering Linux. It’ll be fun to watch coming all this together on the event day. There are many things lined up for next couple of weeks. It is going to be very busy as we approach the event day.

© Manoj Khanna/Open Source World/rapidblog.com 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009
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Finally COSG (Calgary Open Source Group) has a logo, and it’s exciting to learn that the response to the group has been absolutely wonderful with 28 members and growing in past couple of weeks. And now COSG is associated in organizing and sponsoring (one of ‘the’) the One Day Calgary Open Source Festival on Oct 27 called COSSFEST’07. We already have some confirmed session speakers and presentations and more are being signed up. I’ve been keeping myself busy in naming this festival and doing bunch of couple of other things and on them is the logo for the festival. I also am sitting on the sponsorship and speakers committee. And there is tons of work to be done, yet.

To learn more about COSSFEST’07 visit the conference website here.

Finally COSG (Calgary Open Source Group) has a logo, and it’s exciting to learn that the response to the group has been absolutely wonderful with 28 members and growing in past couple of weeks. And now COSG is associated in organizing and sponsoring (one of ‘the’) the One Day Calgary Open Source Festival on Oct 27 called COSSFEST’07.

We already have some confirmed session speakers and presentations and more are being signed up. I’ve been keeping myself busy in naming this festival and doing bunch of couple of other things and on them is the logo for the festival. I also am sitting on the sponsorship and speakers committee. And there is tons of work to be done, yet.

To learn more about COSSFEST’07 visit the conference website here.

© Manoj Khanna/Open Source World/rapidblog.com 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009
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