Beijing Melting Pot
Beijing Melting Pot
Through my encounters with Twitter and after going through many of those Twitterers websites, links and their tweets, I accidentally found myself downloading and suddenly reading this particular e-book titled “Medici Effect” ( can be downloaded from http://ow.ly/19LN8 ) about creativity and innovation. I cannot verify where I get this e-book but, let us treat it as white paper in terms of creativity.
One particular paragraph in this e-book (page 24) that caught my attention is:
“This force will lead to a
plethora of cultural intersections and a host of groundbreaking ideas for those
bold enough to explore them. Cross- cultural ideas will be more easily
introduced to a more diverse audience. This holds particularly true for
businesses and the arts. When the Latin American artist Shakira made her U.S.
debut with the album Laundry Service, she shot to the top of the charts. Her
music had been unusual even in her home country of Colombia. Her father is
Lebanese, and her songs combined Arabic and Latin sounds into “a distinctive
blend of pop and rock unlike anything being done by Colombian singers at the
time.”6 She managed to take this
innovative music and intersect it with American tunes.”
As we are living in a world of melting pot, the paragraph on this e-book mentioning about Shakira is very insightful. Not that I am particularly a fan of Shakira but, it is interesting to know that her album is music created from combinations of her different cultural background. In fact, we as marketers should tap the cultural opportunity that surrounds us. Let us take Beijing for example; it is already a hot and bubbly melting pot. There are so many people from around the world and just meeting and getting to know them can be very inspiring.
Other than the foreigners who live here and have become the Beijingers themselves, there are already so many different minority groups in China. In a way, it is very similar to the country where I come from, Indonesia, with many different minority groups. Learning different culture is like breathing air. This opportunity should be used as resources and getting more ideas for marketing.
I am not suggesting that once we meet people from different culture that we prepare a questionnaire to ask just like a market research project but simply keep an open mind. I am though suggesting to be reading this e-book especially during traffic jam in Beijing where I get to finally finish reading it.
