China Web Sites Seeking Users' Names

China Web Sites Seeking Users' Names - NYTimes.com

BEIJING - News Web sites in China, complying with secret government orders, are requiring that new users log on under their true identities to post comments.

This is the latest shift in policy that the country's Internet users and media have fiercely opposed in the past.

Until recently, users could weigh in on news items on many of the affected sites more anonymously, often without registering at all, though the sites were obligated to screen all posts, and the posts could still be traced via Internet protocol addresses.

But in early August, without notification of a change, news portals like Sina, Netease, Sohu and scores of other sites began asking unregistered users to sign in under their real names and identification numbers, said top editors at two of the major portals affected. A Sina staff member also confirmed the change.

The editors said the sites were putting into effect a confidential directive issued in late July by the State Council Information Office, one of the main government bodies responsible for supervising the Internet in China.

The new step is not foolproof, the editors acknowledged. It was possible for a reporter to register successfully on several major sites under falsified names and ID and cellphone numbers.

But the requirement adds a critical new layer of surveillance to mainstream sites in China, which were already heavily policed. Further regulations of the same nature also appeared to be in the pipeline.

And while the authorities called the measure part of a drive to forge greater 'social responsibility' and 'civility' among users, they moved forward surreptitiously and suppressed reports about it, said the editors and others in the media industry familiar with the measure, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid putting their jobs at risk.

Asked why the policy was pushed through unannounced, the chief editor of one site said, 'The influence of public opinion on the Net is still too big.'

Are Twitterverse or Homo Economicus? Check it out now!

Editors at Britain's Collins English Dictionary have added these and 264 other entries to the 30th Anniversary Edition, published Sept. 3.

To qualify for inclusion in the esteemed lexicon, a word had to have, over the past two years, six quality citations in Collins' digital corpus, a computerized database that scans 2.5 billion words across a number of print and online resources.

The rise of social-networking sites led to the addition of Twitter (the noun) and twitter (the verb), while the kind of dashed-off writing that appears in posts on that site has given new permanence to words such as hmm, heh, and mwah (the sound of an exaggerated kiss) that were previously considered mere sounds.

"Had Twitter and Facebook not become so popular, there's no doubt these terms would not have been included," says Duncan Black, editor of the dictionary. "They're part of the language of microblogging."

He also credits Twitter for the resurgence of terms like heigh-ho and hey-ho — exclamations of happiness, disappointment or surprise — that had fallen into disuse. Words popular in e-mail shorthand and text-messaging such as OMG (oh my god) and WTF (what the f___) also made the cut.

Beyond digital culture, environmental concerns have helped color the dictionary green. Craggers (members of carbon reduction action groups) now have terms to describe their colleagues in the environmental movement.

They probably know more than one ecotarian (a person who only eats food that has been produced in an environmentally friendly manner) and plenty of carborexics (those obsessed with reducing their carbon footprint).

Lastly, the ongoing global financial crisis has moved once highly niche words into the mainstream. People that bandy about complex terms like quantitative easing (increasing the supply of money in order to stimulate economic activity) can now check that they are actually using them correctly.

The recession's effect on our behavior has impacted language too. Holidaymakers trying to rein in spending have popularized the term staycation (taking a holiday without going abroad). Glamping (glamorous camping) is less popular at the moment, for obvious reasons.

Expand your vocabulary with these other additions to the dictionary:

• Avid fart: a flashy and intrusive visual-effects editing style (in film)
• Beer o'clock: the time of day when it is acceptable or customary to start drinking alcohol
• boomburb: a large suburb experiencing rapid population growth
• cage fighting: a form of extreme fighting taking place in an enclosed space
• frugalista: a person who tries to stay fashionably dressed on a budget
• gak: slang for cocaine#
• goon bag: the plastic bladder inside a box of (usually cheap) wine
• homo economicus: a theoretical human being who rationally calculates the costs and benefits of every action before making a decision, used as the basis for a number of economic theories and models
• Ponzimonium: financial turmoil in the wake of uncovering Ponzi schemes
• space junk: objects such as artificial satellites and material discarded from space stations that remain in space after use
• supernanny: an expert who advises parents on how to deal with badly behaved children
• Twitterverse: the social-networking site Twitter and its users

Managing an Aging Workforce: How to Fight the Risks

The workforce is aging fast, and stakeholders — companies, governments, and others — have a narrow window of time to adapt.

So says the World Economic Forum, which Wednesday issued an 80-page report outlining strategic options to address how stakeholders can strengthen financial sustainability, quality of retirement, and health-care provisioning in a rapidly aging world.

The report emphasizes that companies and governments must work cooperatively for meaningful action to occur — a dubious scenario in today's light, with the two sides rarely in agreement on how health care and retirement should be paid for. For CFOs, however, the concern is whether retirement and health-care funding should be a priority right now.

After all, despite a tone of urgency in the report, it discusses demographic changes in terms of decades, not years. For example, it includes a chart showing that the percentage of gross domestic product devoted to retirement and health care will grow from 7% to 13% — between 2000 and 2050.

Indeed, even John Betts — a partner at consulting firm Mercer, a WEF member that helped create the document — concedes to CFO.com that any corporate actions to address the aging workforce won't necessarily bear fruit for some time. "There is an issue about hard-nosed CFOs saying, 'How's it going to affect my profits next year?'" he says. "Probably the answer at the moment is that, well, it won't."

That's the kind of attitude that must undergo a fundamental shift, the report argues — and not only because of the specter of runaway costs. Just as important, the WEF says, is an opportunity to counter the dour fact that many people will have to work later into life as retirement grows less financially attainable. The challenge will be to turn that reality into something very positive for the bottom line. "There is potential to create a 'new age of age,' in which growing old is no longer synonymous with declining health, [but rather] experience is valued as much as youth, the 'silver economy' is vibrant, and the 'wellderly' are active and valued in society."

That's an ambitious goal. But the report, which was two years in the making, has plenty of suggestions for how stakeholder can help facilitate the paradigm shift.

Be Well
Employers, for example, should put less focus on approaching health care tactically with programs that address health issues as they arise, and begin thinking strategically by promoting healthy behaviors. For example, they should provide practical incentives for employees to engage in physical activity, subsidize healthy eating options in workplace dining facilities and vending machines, and ensure that working practices and environments are conducive to long-term health.

Many employers, of course, have taken steps in those directions, although the report clearly implies that more should be done.

In any case, employers want to know what kind of return such investments will produce. In a Web conference yesterday, Mercer partner Christine Owen claimed that on average, wellness initiatives will produce an eventual return of at least three or four to one; that is, $3 to $4 worth of increased productivity and reduced health-care costs for each dollar spent. The return is even greater in emerging countries, where less-cynical employees with limited access to health care may be more willing to participate in wellness programs, she added.

Owen did not detail how that calculation was made. But she painted a grim picture of a future in which the health issues applicable to an older workforce have been dealt with inadequately. "Failure to address this issue sooner rather than later may mean that the gap [between health-care needs and provisions] becomes just too big to bridge," she said. "That could have as big an impact on the economy as the current economic crisis — and I can predict for certain that it will last a good deal longer."

Employers also can improve health care by supporting pay-for-performance programs for health-care providers and building quality measurement into health-plan contracts. They could even investigate the feasibility of extending coverage to include offshore providers, taking into account the risks of legal liability and employee attitudes, the WEF report says.

Into the Sunset
Companies also should step up their efforts on financial education and retirement-planning advice for workers, the report says. They should provide more and better education programs, targeted communications that take into account an individual employee's level of financial literacy, and access to cost-effective planning advice by selecting advisers or subsidizing the cost.

But while it's easy to understand how changing health-care behaviors could hit the bottom line, it's less clear how improved retirement planning would affect corporate performance. Traditionally a good pension plan was a key recruiting tool, but that purpose "is less compelling now than it was," says Betts.

That's because as the number of defined-benefit plans shrinks and existing ones increasingly become unavailable to new employees, younger workers' expectations have changed, he notes. They're more likely to be satisfied with a defined-contribution plan in which the employer merely matches some portion of their own contributions. That makes using pension plans to recruit new talent more difficult.

But Betts predicts that a new trend, in which a few countries have mandated minimum levels of employer retirement provisions, will spread. "Our feeling is that with the aging trend, you're going to see governments moving more into that mode," he says.

That should provide companies with a new incentive to make sure their investments in retirement programs are not wasted. "Calculations show that the outcome of a pension to an employee compared to the money put in can vary by a factor of at least two, depending on how it's been managed," says Betts. "Companies won't want to be hit with the issue of people saying, 'You gave me this pension and now I can't afford to retire.'"

To that end, companies should introduce automatic enrollment programs with higher default contribution rates and automatic increases with age, the WEF report says. It also suggests that companies provide more information to employees nearing retirement on reverse mortgages, which allow them to draw down the equity in their home without selling the real estate.

The report also offers ideas for how pension sponsors can improve their plans' performance. These include introducing target-date funds and appointing professional trustees to plan boards. And they should encourage fiduciaries to investigate the longevity-hedging products currently available for employer-sponsored plans, and facilitate the purchase of annuities by retiring employees.

Building Co-operation between Staff and Management

Do you want more cooperation from your staff or from your manager? Of course you do! Well, rewarding the helpful, positive behaviour is always more effective than punishing the negative actions of perceived 'wrongdoers'.

The results from a new experiment in one of my favourite topics, Game theory . The latest experiment helps to confirm or re-affirm our views on this.

The experiment is based on a public goods game. Players choose whether or not to contribute money to a common pot. The pot is multiplied and redistributed equally, regardless of who contributes and who doesn't.

When people play a pure version of the game, the temptation to freewheel or reap the rewards without contributing anything, often leads to rapidly disintegrating cooperation. It sets up a tit-for-tat response.

Previous research found that cooperation is promoted by allowing players to punish slackers and freeloaders: cooperative players would pay a small cost that enables them to inflict a loss on the offender. This approach was more effective than providing a reward, in short term relations i.e. in games where players switch partners every round.

More carrot, less stick
David Rand and his colleagues at Harvard University modified the public goods game to better reflect, what they describe as, a more natural scenario: people play with the same group for many rounds, establishing longer term relationships and their own reputations within the group.

Players could choose to reward or punish others, at a small cost to themselves. Rand found that rewarding or punishing were equally likely to lead to a more cooperative response and therefore, higher earnings for all, but when players had the option to either punish or reward, but chose to reward, they received even higher absolute payoffs. "It becomes in one's self-interest to help, assist and support the group," says Rand.

It's a symbiotic behaviour that Rand explains as 'you scratch the group's back and It'll scratch yours'," he says.

Money for nothing
Sam Bowles at the Santa Fe Institute, New Mexico, cautions that Rand's game does not accurately reflect real economies. He points out, for example, that under Rand's rules the rewarder pays $4 and the rewardee "magically" receives $12. He calls this an unnatural scenario. "If you take away the free lunch, it doesn't work," says Bowles.

Disproportionate rewards often occur when we spend time, effort and money assisting people around us: helping a friend to move furniture, for instance, or recommending a colleague for promotion.

Actions like these may have a smaller cost to us than the benefit they provide others. These sorts of productive interactions and positive co-operative behaviours, are fundimental building blocks of our society and should not be disregarded, dismissed or underestimated.

Where's the Benefit?
Co-operative behaviours do not always have an immediate or quantifiable payback, normally but they do form part of a 'chain' of co-operative behaviours that begins when 2 people first meet.

Generally speaking, on first meeting, 2 people can either;

• a) form a mutual allegiance or friendship and therefore commit to support each other when and if they can. A sense of altruism is visible from the beginning, on both sides.


• b) a mutually supportive relationship does not form or is only sustainable for a very short period, before a 'conflict of interests' occurs and the 'partnership' is quickly dissolved.


• c) a dominant agressive role is taken up by one and the other is expected to take up a submissive, passive role. (This is often mistakenly called 'strong leadership')

Only the first option offers a 'balanced' and mutually agreeable co-operative relationship, which we would all recognise as friendship or collaboration. Either way, this option is the most stable, and the one most likely to provide the most benefit to the greatest number of people. It provides a platform of trust and co-operation that can be expanded and built upon.

Next Steps are yours
Make your choice or take your pick and start to build a better more co-operative relationship with your staff and with your manager. Let them know you want to do this and you are open to it. Show them how it can be done but most important of all, tell them how they can share in the benefits that will come from it.

Kindle and eBook Readers: Nice to have but ...

The introduction of e-book readers to challenge Amazon’s Kindle has brought new price competition to the market.

The launch of Sony’s $199 Reader and Interead’s $249 Cool-er prompted Amazon to drop the price of its introductory-level Kindle 2 to $299 from $359 within months of its debut.

Despite this change, prices still have a long way to go before e-book readers get beyond the early adopter demographic, according to a study released this week by Forrester Research.

Even among frequent readers with a disposable income and a household income above $75,000, current prices put e-book devices firmly in the expensive luxury category. Forrester’s survey of 4,700 online consumers in the U.S. found average consumers believe the real value of e-book readers is between $50 and $99. This is well below the cheapest reader, currently on the market.

Only 14 percent of consumers said that prices of $199 or higher fall even within the “It’s expensive but I might consider it” range, according to Forrester.

“The maximum addressable market for e-readers as they are currently priced is substantial — but to reach the largest market possible, the prices will need to come way down,” Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps wrote in a blog post about the report. “And even then, e-readers are never going to be as big a market as MP3 players, which 110 million U.S. consumers own.”

H1N1: Rules of Contact and Engagement

“In Samoa, people do not touch when they greet each other,” the linguistic anthropologist Alessandro Duranti says.

There is, of course, a catch: “When people whom they respect highly come into a house, they sit down across from you, and there is an elaborate ceremonial greeting: mentioning each person’s titles and social connections, one at a time, usually for an extended period.”

For those outside Samoa, the era of swine flu poses the thorny challenge of how to express cordiality, friendship, even love — while staying, as the authorities recommend, at least three to five feet away from anyone who coughs, sneezes or might otherwise show signs of infection with the H1N1 virus. Let's hope good sense prevails.

Google's Chief Executive in China Resigns his Post

In what is likely to be seen as a blow to Google’s ambitions in China, Kai-Fu Lee, the prominent head of the company’s operations there, is leaving for an unspecified new venture.

Google said in a news release early Friday in Beijing that Mr. Lee, who was president of Google Greater China and vice president for engineering, would leave the company in mid-September. Two current executives will take over Mr. Lee’s engineering and sales roles. Boon-Lock Yeo, currently director of Google’s Shanghai engineering office, will take over engineering responsibilities for Google China, and John Liu, vice president of sales and operations, will assume business and operational responsibilities.

Mr. Lee’s tenure began tumultuously. Shortly after he was hired as Google’s first employee in China in 2005, Mr. Lee’s former employer, Microsoft, sued Google, claiming that Mr. Lee had an agreement that precluded him from working for a competitor. The suit, which gained wide attention, was settled a few months later. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

Google credited Mr. Lee with bolstering its operations in China, releasing Google.cn, the company’s Chinese-language search engine, and hiring a team of top-notch engineers and scientists.

“Kai-Fu has made an enormous contribution to Google over the last four years — helping dramatically to improve the quality and range of services that we offer in China and ensuring that we continue to innovate on the Web for the benefit of users and advertisers,” Alan Eustace, senior vice president of engineering, said in a statement.

But Google has struggled in China, where it has lagged far behind the home-grown search engine Baidu. It has also come under criticism from human rights groups and has had its services intermittently blocked by the Chinese government.