A bit of a random day. I learnt something about the scale of construction taking place in China; not just the factoid that they’re building 70 airports at the moment, but a much more stunning one. That, in the last 3 years, the Chinese have used more cement than the USA did in the 100 years between 1900 and 2000. The very time when all the Interstate and Road networks were built, in addition to construction in virtually every major city.

5 of the top 10 mobile phone vendors are Chinese (it’s not just an Apple vs Samsung battle now), and one appears to be breaking from the pack in emerging markets – Xiaomi (pronounced show – as in shower – and me). Their business model is to offer Apple-class high end phones at around cost, target them at 18-30 year “fans” in direct sales (normally flash sales after a several 100,000 unit production run), and to make money from ROM customisations and add-on cloud services. I’ve started hearing discussions with Silicon Valley based market watchers who are starting to cite Xiaomi’s presence in their analyses, not least as in China, they are taking market share from Samsung – the first alternative Android vendor to consistently do so. I know their handsets, and their new tablet, do look very nice and very cost effective.

That apart, I have tonight read a fantastic blog post from Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission and responsible for the Digital Agenda for Europe – talking specifically about Uber and this weeks strikes by Taxi drivers in major cities across Europe. Well worth a read in full here.

Summarised:

• Let me respond to the news of widespread strikes and numerous attempts to limit or ban taxi app services across Europe. The debate about taxi apps is really a debate about the wider sharing economy.
• It is right that we feel sympathy for people who face big changes in their lives.
• Whether it is about cabs, accommodation, music, flights, the news or whatever.  The fact is that digital technology is changing many aspects of our lives. We cannot address these challenges by ignoring them, by going on strike, or by trying to ban these innovations out of existence
• a strike won’t work: rather than “downing tools” what we need is a real dialogue
• We also need services that are designed around consumers.
• People in the sharing economy like drivers, accommodation hosts, equipment owners and artisans – these people all need to pay their taxes and play by the rules.  And it’s the job of national and local authorities to make sure that happens.
• But the rest of us cannot hide in a cave. 
• Taxis can take advantage of these new innovations in ways consumers like – they can arrive more quickly, they could serve big events better, there could be more of them, their working hours could be more flexible and suited to driver needs – and apps can help achieve that.
• More generally, the job of the law is not to lie to you and tell you that everything will always be comfortable or that tomorrow will be the same as today.  It won’t. Not only that, it will be worse for you and your children if we pretend we don’t have to change. If we don’t think together about how to benefit from these changes and these new technologies, we will all suffer.
• If I have learnt anything from the recent European elections it is that we get nowhere in Europe by running away from hard truths. It’s time to face facts:  digital innovations like taxi apps are here to stay. We need to work with them not against them.

It is absolutely refreshing to have elected representatives working for us all and who “get it”. Focus on consumers, being respectful of those afflicted by changes, but driving for the collective common good that Digital innovations provide to society. Kudos to Neelie Kroes; a focus on users, not entrenched producers – a stance i’ve only really heard with absolute clarity before from Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon. It does really work.