Make An Effort to Improve Our World

Nicholas Kristof writes an interesting opinion piece for The New York Times:

How to Change the World

Worth a read.  Worth an effort to improve our world.

Welcome to the Great International Education Race

There is a well-thought out scramble for students, professors, prestige and prosperity that is changing the face of university education around the world.

For decades the United States attracted more than a quarter of all foreign students in college or graduate education. Recently that has begun to change. While the continuing boom in study overseas — an explosion largely unaffected by the economic downturn — means that the number of foreign students going to the United States has continued to grow, the U.S. share of the foreign student market has fallen to just 18.7 percent, according to the most recent report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Meanwhile countries like Australia, Russia and New Zealand have all seen their share of the market rise sharply.

Read all about the rapidly changing international education landscape here.

Photo credit here.

Meet the New Breed of South African Entrepreneurs

South Africa (pictured) has long been looked upon as an unstable business environment. Not for long. Meet the new breed of South African entrepreneurs who are optimistic that they can change perceptions and climb the industrial ladder.

Read all about it here.

This related resource may be of interest to you as well:

South Africa: Overview

Enter China With Eyes Wide Open

Insightful piece with James McGregor of APCO Worldwide. He's a journalist turned consultant, and has been following the China story for 20 years.

Take a look at his interview, "Q&A: Doing Business In China," conducted by Emily Rauhala at The New York Times.

Illustration: James McGregor and his book, "One Billion Customers: Lessons From the Front Lines of Doing Business in China."

Posted by: The Global Small Business Blog

Thomas Friedman: Just do it

In case you missed Friedman's column in the April 17th edition of The New York Times, here's a snippet before I give you the link to the real deal:

EndoStim was inspired by Cuban and Indian immigrants to America and funded by St. Louis venture capitalists. Its prototype is being manufactured in Uruguay, with the help of Israeli engineers and constant feedback from doctors in India and Chile. Oh, and the C.E.O. is a South African, who was educated at the Sorbonne, but lives in Missouri and California, and his head office is basically a BlackBerry. While rescuing General Motors will save some old jobs, only by spawning thousands of EndoStims — thousands — will we generate the kind of good new jobs to keep raising our standard of living.

Read the entire contribution here:

Just Doing It

Photo credit: EndoStim

Clueless on How To Increase Your International Sales?

Great feature by Ian Mount for The New York Times and we are happy to be included in it (thanks Ian!).

Small-Business Guide
Tips for Increasing Sales in International Markets

Will China Give In?

One of my favorite thought leaders (Nobel Prize winner), Paul Krugman, explains how he thinks about the current China syndrome, and why he believes that most of the responses that he hears from fans are missing the point.

He focuses on three questions:

The macroeconomics of Chinese currency intervention, the fallacies of elasticity pessimism, and the political economy issue of how to deal with Chinese intransigence.

Capital Export, Elasticity Pessimism, and the Renminbi (Wonkish)

Agree or disagree?

Mistaking Beauty for Global Truth

An interesting state of the economics piece by economist Paul Krugman (pictured), "How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?"

A snippet from it here:

When it comes to the all-too-human problem of recessions and depressions, economists need to abandon the neat but wrong solution of assuming that everyone is rational and markets work perfectly. The vision that emerges as the profession rethinks its foundations may not be all that clear; it certainly won’t be neat; but we can hope that it will have the virtue of being at least partly right.

A few notes about it here.

We wrote about Krugman a while back (10/13/08). He's someone to track.

The Big Second Wave: Young Americans Heading to China

It looks as if more adventurous young Americans are arriving in China to ward off unemployment in the states and to be a part of either regular employment or an entrepreneurial boom.

Read more about it here:

Shut Out at Home, Americans Seek Opportunity in China.

Have any readers done this? If so, please contact me at ldelaney(at)globetrade.com. and I'll interview you. We'll share your story with readers.

Changing The Way The World Learns Languages

What was he thinking when Tom Adams, CEO (37), chose to take Rosetta Stone public in April during the worst downturn in recent memory?

Since 2003, the company has grown from a small, family-owned business with $10 million in annual revenue and 90 full-time employees into a 1,200-employee operation with first-quarter revenue this year of $50.3 million.

Rosetta Stone’s shares have recently traded above $27 (shares went out initially above the estimated range of $15 to $17 and raising $112.5 million). The wildly successful offering sent a message of good news worldwide for privately owned companies.

Did Tom Adams take a calculated risk? Find out here where Lora Kolodny with The New York Times recently spoke with Mr. Adams about his decision.

Original entry about about Rosetta Stone and its interest to grow global can be found here (4/23/09).