boralben's comments

My employer pays for its software developers to attend one conference per year. While software conferences can be terrific learning experiences, most of us consider this perk to be something similar to a paid vacation. Many people try to find conferences in exciting, far-flung locations.

It seems like the software conference industry is one that could be a leader in creating "virtual tracks" for conferences. This would have the effect of reducing unnecessary airplane trips while also opening conferences up to larger audiences.

There is a group within academia that is promoting this approach: https://academicflyingblog.wordpress.com/

Their FAQ has a lot of really solid information, and some of the answers really resonated with me in terms of "Do I really need to physically be at this conference?" FAQ: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1URRRh4zMSpvtZY08F9-Rkbx0...

The nice thing about learning Chinese is that no matter where you are in the world, you can find Chinese language exchange partners. If you live near a university, post an advertisement in the engineering or sciences buildings (or wherever you expect to find Chinese students) or post an ad at a bus stop in the neighborhood where the Chinese students usually live (in my hometown, most Chinese students live in the same neighborhood). Another place is the best local Chinese restaurant. I have a couple language exchange partners I found by posting an ad at the bus stop. Each week, we spend 1 hour speaking Chinese and 1 hour working on reading/writing academic articles in English.

I am a one man indie shop. My freelance work supports the time and design expense that I use for my side-projects which make peanuts.

I disagree with this post. The author is setting himself up for a bad reputation. Those unhappy customers that pay exorbitant fees will make it their business to tell others to avoid using the author.

Late-paying customers are just part of business.

Agreed. I was in a similar spot (trying to sell online to local biz). I was walking door-to-door, meeting local businesses, and at one restaurant, the owner happened to be sitting with his social media guy. That guy opened doors at other local businesses that were his clients.

A very simple formula worked for me: a full LinkedIn profile and a technical blog. I've found that many people land on my LinkedIn profile, then some continue to my website where they can get an idea for my skill level by looking at some blog entries. Also, the clients that come via that channel are usually high quality clients. In general, they are dev shops with too much work to handle in-house, so they're looking for an extra hand. Since they're technical people, their projects are clearly stated and expectations are realistic.

Economic Reformation completely transformed the government, causing it to be a shadow of its former self by killing millions of jobs at government owned companies. The party survived and subsequently thrived. Chinese unification is a centuries-old goal wholly unrelated to economic development.

I recommend reading Richard McGregor's The Party for a good introduction on the forces at play in modern China.

I think sponsorship is a great idea. Look at the success Meetup has had with this strategy. The nice thing about sponsorship money is that once a contract is signed, the revenue will be consistent month to month.

The payoff for the sponsoring company will be the good reputation it gets from that developer ecosystem. There could even be a way to connect this sponsorship to recruiting developers from that ecosystem as employees (the bonus being that they are already familiar with this project)

"Their only agenda is the economic advancement of China and the stability of it's government."

I disagree: Their geopolitical agenda includes unification plus securing rights to natural resources under the South China Sea. Hillary and the US Navy have made it clear that the US will not be tolerant of a bully in the South China Sea. Also, stability of the government is not important, only stability of the party.

My interpretation is that Nvidia caused the Chinese to lose face, and this what will doom them to lose future contracts. I've been living here in China for 6 months now, and the social aspects of business, like face, are really nuanced, but so so important. I don't really understand them yet.