(Left: Teo Yi Wei, Jeremiah Owyang, Wong Peng Wai at the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore)

While in Singapore a few weeks ago, I had the rare opportunity to meet with the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA), a group that is a Public Service Company, an interesting mix between public and private sector with around 1000 employees. Their Charter from their about page:

“The strategic goal of the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) is to cultivate a vibrant and competitive infocomm industry in Singapore – one that attracts foreign investment and sustains long-term GDP growth through innovative infocomm technology development, deployment and usage in Singapore – in order to enhance the global economic competitiveness of Singapore”

As I understand it, IDA has three major components, the Telecom group, the FCC type of group, and the InfoComm group. They’ve also got a substantial fund (400mil) in funding base to invest in companies. They’re focusing on a lot of incentives for busineses to move to Singapore, and are strongly encouraging business growth.

I was invited to one of the sky rises (SunTec tower Three) in the downtown area to visit them on the towering building, why? I made some inquires to find out more about how web companies can do business in Asia. During the hour long meeting, I got to understand that they’re seeking to develop companies and growth in Singapore (a very wealthy nation, that has focus on international business). Singapore is a business hub, strategically situated between Asia and the Middle East.

Specifically, we had discussions around web companies and how they can do business with Singapore. IDA is seeking to work with companies that are ready to grow into other parts of Asia (HK, Taiwan, Beijing, Japan, India) as Singapore is a great first hub, as it’s business friendly, affluent, clean, and English speaking. Singapore is also host to international talent, this thriving of culture is not unlike the SF bay area.

The downsides of doing business in Singapore? It’s very competitive, and the market moves at a fast rate. I’d also you’ll need to acclimated to heat and humidity.

I also learned they have an office in Redwood Shores in Silicon Valley, I hope to meet up with them soon. I spent just a short week like in Singapore, and there’s three words I can describe it is as: Immaculate, Efficient and Polite. Some expressed a somewhat cultural heaviness from the government, who’s now trying to relax their image after looking heavy handed.

So what are the next steps to expand your web business to Singapore and then the rest of Asia:
Here’s what they told me:

1) Visit the offices in SF, Shanghai, Bangalore, and Qatar, here’s a list of all their offices. The job of the IDA is to bridge and connect you to the network in Singapore to get started

2) Like I did, visit Singapore, and get a tour, perhaps attend some of the upcoming tech conferences such as the Global Enteropolis and Global Enterpreneurs.com or IX.

I recommend you check out my various blog posts on Singpaore, and my Singapore Flickr pictures to learn about this wonderful country, I can’t wait to return. If I got any of the facts wrong about IDA, feel free to leave a comment below.

Update: TDM Group has created a wiki with a list of Web 2.0 resources.

This idea is spreading around the globe, the Irrelevant Corporate website needs to evolve, and it has now been translated into Italian by our new friend Marco.

Just yesterday, it was converted to Greek, and previously German. If you translate it to your native language, let me know, and I’ll add you to this growing global manifesto. Where are my Spanish speaking, Chinese and Japanese friends?

I wrote a post on How to evolve your irrelevant corporate website. Basically, I think that corporate websites need to change, in order to keep up with the changes that social media has brought.

The post has sense been translated into German, and I think it’s been translated to another language, (Update: Greek!) but I can’t confirm which language it is. Perhaps you could?

If anyone else could translate it into your native language, I’ll be happy to promote it.

Today Ming Yeow (a friend from Singapore) recommended to Andreas Weignard that I have lunch with a group of German executives from the Otto group, one of the largest retailers in all of Germany. I was told they have over 500,000 different products that are sold in their conglomerate, one brand they own is Crate and Barrel, see their portfolio of other companies.

While I dined with these very important executives we were talking about Social Media adoption in Germany. Munjal Shaw was there too, I like how he shares his strategic vision as a CEO from his blog. You see, the blog activity in Germany is lower than other cultures (France has abnormal growth) and it’s likely related to culture, politics, and past historical events.

We had talks about Corporate blogs, and what it means to be human, and chatted about Walmart’s failed “myspace clone” and how companies should consider finding the communities where the exist, rather than trying to create their own.

I’m going to loop in with Nicole Simon, who’s a German blogger to see what she knows about the active areas in Social Media in Germany.

If you’re German, (and especially if you’re a blogger) do you have any resources on the top German websites, top social sites, or stats and resources about what tools are being used? Thanks

I just received an interesting email from a new friend, he runs a website called. I had dinner with good friend Shel Israel, who I shared with, we were pleased as his book Naked Conversations was converted to Chinese (my heritage) and some of my posts are being converted to Hebrew, the language of the Jewish culture. They will appear on both TheMarker and in a supplement in the Haaretz daily.

Not sure if I ever told you, but my family is very diverse, I’ve half Jewish, African American, Korean, Japanese, Swedish, and many other cultures mixed in with our Chinese blood, all connected to the Owyang surname. That’s what happens when your family is here for 5 generations in the world’s largest melting pot. We truly are in a Global Neighborhood.

I look forward some day when text will automatically be converted to different languages by applications. It’s possible that it could learn phrases, and be able to ‘learn’ the context and meaning.

Update: Here’s the first shots I’ve seen, its on the homepage, and here’s a specific article. I’ve put some screenshots below if you can’t see it for whatever reason.

Bob LeDrew comments on the minor rant I had on Shel’s deciding to go with his book title, he says In your face Owyang!.

To be clear, I don’t have beef with the Global Community, I just feel a blogger should write in his native language. Shel in all his wisdom, chose to go with the community opinion, either way the book will be a success.

This whole global web thing is a real pain in the butt, I guess there are two options:
1) Everyone should learn ‘American’
or
2) Change the spelling of my name to Ouwyang, rather than Owyang.