Skip or fall asleep?
From a moral standpoint, can journalists on a junket skip totally irrelevant sessions and go shopping? Or do they have to sit in on sessions, pretend to take notes and not write up anything anyway?
That question came about yesterday when Smartbrain was locked in conversation with a Malaysian journalist at the Shanghai Spring Intel Developer Forum (IDF). The afternoon session of day 0 was all about Intel Capita and its investments into China for the most part. Being a vetran of IDF in Bejing last year, Smartbrain noted to the group that the Intel Capital section was totally and utterly irrelevant to our type of publication at least and last year yielded absolutely nothing for Smartbrain to write about.
Hence, the reasoning went, we should go and check out the fake iPhones and BMW phones at a nearby store. All the more appealing since the event venue is right next to an underground station.
Incidentally there are “Dopodo” phones which boot up with a Windows Mobile facade, look similar to a Symbian S60 phone in use an have a weird full ABCD (as opposed to QWERTY) keypad which makes it almost useless.
However, when a Filipino Intel PR overheard our little plan of egress, she was visibly upset and said we had time on the end of day two to go shopping; that she knew of places in the tourist distrit that gave a nice discount to Intel event attendees and that we should stay.
Exit, Smartbrain stage right, but not before mentioning in passing that some of the shops in Yu Bazarr are ten times more expensive than shops where the locals shop to begin with.
Ten minutes later, Smartbrain finds his merry band of would-be escapees looking totally miserable in the foyer. Apparently there had been a minor incident and none of the other Journalists now felt comfortable with hopping out during the Intel China capital session.
Smartbrain left anyway and got in a sizeable bit of shopping in the Orient IT Plaza that day plus all the information needed to write up a mini shopping in Shanghai story.
On a side note, Shanghai is fun in a barbaric kind of way. If there is no room, shove. The lunch journalist buffet queue was a lesson in how to get ahead without shame: The foreign journos were in a neat, orderly queue (for the most part) while the locals just pushed their way into get food when and where they wanted.
The entrance to the main keynote hall was verging on a crush (and would probably have been illegal in the UK under health and safety laws) and the hapless usher with signs saying “VIP” looked on helplessly on as non-VIP visitors filled up the VIP seats.
At least there aren’t any prostitutes offering their services right outside the convention centre this year as was the case at IDF Beijing last year. Now, that’s progress.
