Does Your Product Have Potential in An Overseas Market?

Guess Who's Going Global? Honey Boo Boo!

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Who is Honey Boo Boo you might ask?

She is the 7-year child beauty pageant contestant and her reality TV show, "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo," are going global (Latin America, Australia and Europe).

Learn more here and here.

It goes to show you that anyone and any business can go global!

DHL: The State of Globalization Around the World

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Surprise, surprise.  DHL has released its second edition of the DHL Global Connectedness Index (GCI), a comprehensive analysis of the state of globalization around the world.

The report draws on over one million data points from 2005 to 2011, concluding that the world today is less globally connected than it was in 2007.

Learn more here.

Key finding:

Since the onset of the global financial crisis in 2007, however, global connectedness has been faltering and has even suffered reversals, according to the DHL Global Connectedness Index 2012.  This is an alarming finding given the huge gains that global connectedness has brought to the world's citizens.

 GCI Study (immediately download PDF file; size 17.4 MB)

Building a Global Brand Is Not Easy

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Dominique Turpin, Nestlé professor and president of IMD business school, says that big global brands are now born everywhere but building one is not easy.

Much as in developed markets, a brand must offer something meaningful, innovative and different for the consumer. And the innovation does not relate only to the product. It also applies to pricing, advertising, communications and a company’s entire business model.

This all looks simple on paper but is hard to put into practice.

Read the entire article here.

World: Find What You Enjoy

Photo courtesy:  ©Laurel Delaney 2013.  All rights reserved.  "Flying a Helicopter, Chicago"

"We don't do things we aren't good at by nature. I wouldn't play basketball because I'm only 5' 1". Find what you enjoy - whether it's racing, flying a helicopter, being a doctor, or stitching clothes together. Once you've done that, you have the passion you need." ~ Danica Patrick

Eco-Friendly Solutions Go Global

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New Zealand father and son team Tim and Geoff Barnett are behind the innovative compact machine that crushes glass containers into a fine grade sand.

Since developing the machine in 2010, the pair have sold about 400 machines around the world under the brand Expleco.  Export markets include island resorts in the South Pacific, the Caribbean and the Maldives. 

What's next?  They are currently working on a program to supply the machines to 50 hotels all within the same block in New York City, and another deal to furnish 40 bars in a Texas football stadium.

Learn more on how they are going global here.

How to Manage Human Capital Across Borders

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As more and more companies begin to sell products and services in very different parts of the world, a major challenge is managing human capital to meet these changing needs. Not only are customer needs diverse and selective, but compensation and legalities are different across the world.

Find out how to manage human capital across borders here.

Meet Global Superstar PSY

Global superstar PSY's videos have exceeded one-billion views on YouTube - first in history. He seems to have unlimited global reach. View the video above. This one in particular has more than 74 million views.

The point?  You never know when you can hit it big with your talent, product and service offering.  Go for it!

Globalized Education

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In the age of globalization and with the power of the Internet, creating online education classes for the masses is a breeze.  Coursera and Udacity prove it. 

The idea is to use technology to bring global education resources to schools to personalize education, to engage students on a daily basis in collaborative learning with global partners, and to enable teachers and students to create authentic works for others around the globe.

Learn more here.

India and APEC: What It Means

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Should the U.S. back India's membership in Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)?  Walter Lohman and Derek Scissors, Ph.D. seem to think so.

For India to join, it must commit to APEC’s mission to “champion free and open trade and investment.” It must also be able to participate effectively. This means providing the required information concerning its own regulatory environment and working to harmonize it with the existing and future regulations introduced by other members. It may take several years for India to create the capacity to provide and absorb the information, but it would certainly not be the first member to suffer from institutional overload. The benefit to all APEC members of exercising patience with this process will be a much larger active economy with better-matched regulatory standards.

Read more here.

A Room With a Chicago View

Photo courtesy:  ©Laurel Delaney 2013.  All rights reserved.  "Room With a Chicago View"

A room with a view, 321 N. Clark Street, Chicago, Illinois, 28th floor, facing West (4:30 p.m. Central on February 14, 2013).

Enjoy the weekend.

Is America Swapping Garbage for Computers with China?

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Clyde Prestowitz tells us a thing or two about what's wrong with America and why record numbers of Americans are telling the polsters that they're fed up.  His argument stems from how we trade, for example, with China.

Our major import is nearly $50 billion of computer equipment while our major export is about $8 billion of waste paper and scrap metal. Yes, that's right. We're swapping garbage for computers with China -- and lots of other countries as well. 

The Huffington Post is doing a fresh take on a three-year old article (must be a new book coming out by Prestowitz).

Read the entire article:  America Needs a New Globalization Game

President Obama Promotes Exports and Trade

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In the short clip below, President Obama emphasizes the importance of international trade and how it creates American jobs.  He also touches on the Trans-Pacific Partnership and his intentions towards E.U.-U.S. free trade agreement.

View the clip here.

The Impact of Globalization on the U.S. Wine Industry

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Mike Veseth gives three refreshingly different takes on the impact of globalization on the U.S. wine industry by using apples as an example.

One take is Juice Box Globalization, the other, Granny Smith Globalization and the last one, Honey Crisp Globalization.  All offer a unique perspective of thinking outside the (juice) box.

Don’t think that globalization is just competition from imports from other countries (although that’s part of it, of course) or just export opportunities abroad (as important as they can be). Globalization is both of them and many more influences, too.

Who is Mike Veseth?

Mike Veseth is the Robert G. Albertson Professor of International Political Economy at the University of Puget Sound. He is the author of many books, including Wine Wars (2011) and Extreme Wine (forthcoming October 2013). 

Read the entire article:  Juice Box Globalization:  The Future of Wine?

Should the U.S. Export Natural Gas?

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As Brad Plumer for the Washington Post says, "... the fight over natural gas exports may be overblown."

One of the big energy issues Congress will face in the coming year is what to do about the glut of cheap natural gas in the United States. Should we start exporting some of that gas abroad and earn a tidy profit? Or keep it here at home?

Find out more here.

Reader's comments based on Plumer's post:

One reader provided the following PDF file report in her comment:
http://www.sierraclub.org/naturalgas/downloads/LOOK-BEFORE-YOU-LEAP.pdf

And another added this resource link:
Business Groups Clamor For LNG Exports, Warn of WTO Consequences 

Note:  LNG=liquefied natural gas

Biggest Trading Nation in the World?

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According to Bloomberg, China surpassed the U.S. to become the world’s biggest trading nation last year as measured by the sum of exports and imports.  China is considered the world's biggest exporter (2009) and the U.S. is the world's biggest importer.

U.S. exports and imports last year totaled $3.82 trillion, the U.S. Commerce Department said last week. China’s customs administration reported last month that the country’s total trade in 2012 amounted to $3.87 trillion. China had a $231.1 billion annual trade surplus while the U.S. had a trade deficit of $727.9 billion.

Read the entire article:  China Passes U.S. to Become World's Biggest Trading Nation

Bring On the Snow!

Photos courtesy: ©Laurel Delaney.  All rights reserved.  "Motorcycle Snowman."

"Disney had made such a great deal of money on Snow White that the banks gave him the go-ahead on the next three films. But he was heavily dependent on the foreign market." ~ Marc Davis

How a Furniture Maker's Triumph Translates to International Success

Photo courtesy:  ©Laurel Delaney.  All rights reserved.  "Business As Unusual"

Here are five out more than a hundred principles-in-action that former president and chief executive officer Hugh DePree at Herman Miller implemented and how they relate to running not just a global small business but any business.  Hugh passed away in 2002.

Five Tips for Business Success

Building the Future With a Worldview

The Global Economy in 2013

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A broad view of our brave new, interconnected world.  Find out why uncertainty is weighing on the global economic outlook.

Global economy in 2013 (immediate download of a 36-page PDF file)

Intrapreneurship Can Be Global

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The first written use of the term intrapreneur, intrapreneuring and intrapreneurship goes back to around 1978 by Gifford and Elizabeth Pinchot.  In 1985, Gifford Pinchot wrote a best-selling book "Intrapreneuring:  Why You Don't Have to Leave the Corporation to Become an Entrepreneur."  I read the book and found it absolutely fascinating.  Amazon barely has a mention of it.  Pinchot was so ahead of his time.

Intrapreneurship is now talked about as cultivating entrepreneurship within big companies.  How do you get corporate employees to come up with creatives ideas that result in radical improvements within an organization?  Many refer to that same concept as Skunk Works Projects.  

A lot of folks thought intrapreneurship was a fad but it isn't. 

... PwC’s PowerPitch program that I previously mentioned was an entrepreneurship contest that engaged 60% of their entire global organization of 30,000 employees. They had expected 100 ideas to come in, but received over 779 in the first round.

 How Big Companies Are Becoming Entrepreneurial

Export to World From Second Life

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Some things in life are best left unexplained but I'll give one quick hint:  Learn how to export from Second Life.  Second Life can be found here.

Export to World

Iced Over, And We're Not Talking Cupcakes

©Laurel Delaney 2013.  All rights reserved.  "Iced Over in Chicago"

"You know what they say about Chicago. If you don't like the weather, wait fifteen minutes." ~ Ralph Kiner

The Death of Traditional Retail and Local Businesses That Don't Go Global

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One of my favorite tech thought leaders, Marc Andreessen (co-founder Netscape), predicts the following:

... Andreessen expects this wave to keep building and high drama to come by the end of the decade. “Retail guys are going to go out of business and e-commerce will become the place everyone buys. You are not going to have a choice,” he says. “We’re still pre-death of retail, and we’re already seeing a huge wave of growth. The best in class are going to get better and better. We view this as a long term opportunity.”

It's worth noting that Andreessen is on the Board of eBay.  His final comment in the article worth highlighting:

“My core theory is that the best software companies will win at retail, so it’ll become increasingly important for these companies to have the best software programmers in the world. And there are a lot more of them in the Valley.”

Read the entire story here.

Small businesses, start your global e-commerce engines!

Read this post (2010) as it relates to the death of certain 'local' businesses: Go Global or Your Business Will Die