Stand Up and Talk About

‘T s the season for corporate events.  Is this my fourth one this fall?  Inside the hall of Shanghai’s Kube-con, the likely suspects are manning their insta-booths.  I’m soon talking to someone from IBM.  Didn’t we talk to these guys not too long ago?  Ah, that was when they had some other local partner and it all didn’t work out.  It’s all coming aback as I glean the bits I can from the Chinese conversation a colleague is boisterously driving.

I need to leave early though.  People from another part of my life have invited me over to speak at their event.  “As long as you’re in town . . . “  It’s informal.  The attendees are kind.  “Just stand up and talk about China John.”  Well then.  Which bits from my lessons would be relevant?  What should I take on and emphasize so that these good people feel that they have had some value.  “No.  That’s alright.”  It’s only twenty-five people and I certainly don’t need a mic. 

 “Have you heard of Zheng He?”  We go into the Aztecs and the Incas.  Th Portuguese around the Cape of Good Hope.  We go into arc of innovation.  Themes I’ve played with on and off for much of the last decade.  It dawns on me that I really must shape these into something more durable and less conversational.  They’ve all been discussed by others before.  But not in the way that I do it.

I think I know when to end it.   I think I bring it to something of crescendo.  The talk feels well-received.  I enjoy one and then another and stlll a third debrief with the intelligent, peer level guests who are all in China for their first time.  I take my time chatting, when I should not.  What time is it now, anyway? 

Speeding up the elevated highway I call the travel agency and suggest they arrange for me to swap tickets on to the subsequent flight home.  It’s all rather easy and I don’t’ think twice about it.   No.  There are not aisle seats left on your flight, but you can have a window.   My daughter is returning from her adventure tonight and with this new flight we can meet at same time there in the Capital Airport.

Wednesday, 11/14/18