Beijing arrival. China Google dispute.
Beijing arrival. China Google dispute. Boston College’s ICP Asia program successfully arrived in Beijing– all students here safely with our luggage. Our client, CCAFM, met us at the airport and we just had a great dinner; things are boding well for year #12 of working together. Everything more formally starts tomorrow during the “meet and greet” at the offices as part of the Welcome Ceremony. The teams meet face-to-face with their Chinese counterparts tomorrow, to begin refining the final stages of their recommendations before the official presentations at the end of the week.
However, as a fascinating undercurrent to this trip, we seem to be in the middle of the cross fire with the dispute the Chinese government is having with Google. All gmail has been shut down, including 3rd party applications, like the ones BC uses, in part, to run its email system. I’m relying on old school email and it’s taking 10 minutes at a time to send and receive just one message. As you know, I LOVE China and very much enjoy doing business here. Additionally, I steadfastly try to avoid commenting on, or getting involved with, political issues. While conducting commerce here is regularly a challenge– which is part of the fun and a great learning opportunity for our grad students– this latest row has really thrown me for a loop. I have redundant systems some of which I’ve always been able to call upon for backup, but this time none of them is working. Have tried different hot spots in every corner of my room but to no avail with Wifi. Now in the lobby…
But tomorrow will be a brand new day.
-
- The BC team has arrived in Beijing
-
- Getting onto the bus
-
- BC students and one member of the CCAFM consulting team (whose nickname is “Eagles!”)
-
- BC MBA and LAW students
-
- CCAFM consulting member Candace, GSSW and evening MBAs
-
- Full time MBA and LAW students enjoying dinner
Here’s info on the ICP course, and more content on the course follows here:
Have you ever dreamed of climbing the Great Wall of China? How about consulting to a Chinese firm in Beijing? We are in the process of planning the 2014 International Consulting Project Asia, a 3-credit course that involves consulting work during the fall semester on campus, with a trip to Beijing in January/2015 to deliver the team’s recommendation personally to the client, at their offices. This is the 13th year in a row that this program has been offered.
