Few columnists really get China – one who does is Nicholas D. Kristof of NY Times. In a couple of recent opinion pieces he has covered the apparent contradiction between the hysterical paranoia of the party elite and the almost miraculous speed of progress and development that is evident on the ground.

Our friends at Innovation Works (www.innovation-works.com) are celebrating their first birthday these days. They will mark the event by going public with their first batch of interesting and creative ventures – primarily entering the Chinese consumer and mobile internet space, currently dominated by Baidu (search), Tencent (social), Taobao (eCommerce) and China Mobile (mobile internet).

Lately I've been having thoughts about polymorphism. Let's get this straight, I'm not talking about the Object Oriented principle in Programming. I'm talking about good old-fashioned Biology 1A - Polymorphism. It's been decades since we've studied it, so here's a summary:

Sometimes a gene mutates and you see two different variants in the same population. The classic example is the peppered moth.

Having been working on building R&D teams both for Chinese customer and western customer for many years. There are lots of debates about how to build a innovative and efficient team in China. Here are some tips for western companies when considering building operations especially R&D force in China.

1. Think before take action