New Elliott Ng personal blog

In an attempt to get off of blogger (a roach motel of data that also gets blocked by the Great Firewall of China) and onto my own controlled domains, I've set up a new blog called Elliott Ng. I am hoping that this new blog can eventually outrank New Global Value so I can just get off of this old blogger blog and on to my own.

Update: 01/06/10
My new company is called Venture Sprout and I'll be blogging there. I'll also be continuing to blog about China related issues at CN Reviews and Travel and Search at UpTake's Travel Industry Blog.

Google, please go there and not here! Don't come here anymore!

Rick Warren at Davos

Via Scoble's QIK video feed I discovered Rick Warren was at the Davos World Economic Forum.  Worth watching.  Quick summary:

He sees 5 problems that are facing the world right now:

1.  poverty

2.  disease

3.  illiteracy

4.  spiritual emptiness

5.  political corruption

He advocates a three-legged stool approach to solving these problems:

1. public sector - government must set the agenda and the priorities for their nations

2. private sector - business must bring innovation, expertise and investment to solving these problems.

3.  faith-based sector - while not usually considered, there are several advantages of involving faith based organizations in solving for these problems:

  a.  universal distribution - in 10 mm villages and 1000 language groups more than the United Nations.

  b.  manpower - 2.3 billion Christians, 1.0 billion Muslims, 800 million Hindus, 700 mm Buddhists.  Over 80% of the world population is part of one faith group or another.

  c.  local credibility - "NGOs may come and go, but the local village priest will always be there."

Great framing of the advantages of involving the faith-based sector in addressing the largest social issues facing the world today, and presented in a way that makes it understandable to people who ordinarily may not see things in a faith-based lens.

Here is the QIK video from Scoble.  He talks a little about his church Saddleback Church and his book Purpose Driven Life.

Shanghai Maps in English getting better and better

The biggest problem for non-fluent travelers in China is the lack of high quality maps that are both up to date, and in English. This is true in print and online. It seems that this is changing! Here is a cool metro map on SmartShanghai via Micah Sittig.I'll keep updating this page with more maps as I find them.