An innovative project in the editorial world in Spain just takes its first step. Born as global as the Internet, the network through which it is delivered, eastwind magazine & newsletter has got a clear aim: Fostering a fluent communication flow between men and women who do business all around the world.
Up today eastwind hardly has delivered a tiny bunch of newsletters, but accounts with the experience of its editor, eva gonzález (she has asked the lowercase), a lawyer who’s been working as journalist for more than 15 years up today. She has been barrister for over 10 years and devoted full time to journalism during the last 5. “A passion that can very well lead one to the red numbers”, confesses. Currently she works as editor and contibutes simultaneously to articles and interviews at other media. In 2007 she hoards up 3 years working as freelance for a radio programme specialised in tourism. “A really fluent and dynamic media, as real as life itself”, she sais with gaze of affection, and adds: “The best in this job is the contact with the other human beings”.
Question: To which kind of readers targets eastwind?
Eva González: “ Eastwind magazine & newsletter is a new publication which is basically specialised in global management and lifestyle. Our aim is to keep well informed and serve to all those men and women in business branch, either already operating in a global scope, or that want internationalizing their businesses. We believe that the world of business is based on human relations and they cannot be fluent without understanding who is negotiating against us right at the opposite side of the table. Nobody can also make business successfully without understanding the people whom work along with at the same company, some of them may be coming from countries far away from ours. That’s why in eastwind, management is the same as entrepreneurial skills, but also implies culture, art, social uses, protocol, gastronomy – it is often said that we are what we eat- and many other things reserved to leisure and life outside of work.
“Our aim is to be useful to the businessmen and businesswomen who act or want to act in a global scope. Many of them speak Spanish, but many others not, although all usually handle the English language. Hence our name is composed of two English words: east (which means the East) and wind (which means moving air or even human breath). Also with efforts to better serve the overall business community, our magazine account with an English version. Yes, we have a version as Spaniard as its origin, but also we deliver an international version in English.
“I´ve talked before about managers, but eastwind is also a very enjoyable product, available to any person concerned by what is happening outside his/her own country. The gourmet section will provide very interesting information and links, related to culture and lifestyle in general. From the best Indonesian furniture shop to the trendiest, most elegant and appealing restaurant will meet together in this gourmet space. Among the gourmet links and information, and this is a very personal preference, I would have a look to cheap & chic subsection. Because not always the most gourmet choice must be the most expensive.
“In addition eastwind will count shortly with a multimedia area, where readers will find radio interviews and repports, as well as videos. We illustrate our whole editorial content with nice images, but delivering hot stuff to be heard and seen will be our next step.
“Finally, the events section will include some organized by eastwind itself, together with other, just recommended by our magazine, either by their educational, cultural or simply recreative interest. All events will be related to trends that arrive at any country coming from the East. But we understand the East in a very broad sense. We cannot forget that everything that comes from Spain into The States enters the U.S. coming from the East, and that’s just an example”.
Q: Why Eastwind?
Eva González: “I´ve been just working for one year as journalist specialised in restaurant branch, when I realized that ‘some Asian dishes had been slid into our diet, while nobody was looking at’. I was somewhat shocked, so I began to consider the fact that I am sold my everyday bread and butter by a Chinese girl and her Romanian mate at the bakery.
“One Spanish girl whose father is Japanese has presented recently in Madrid her book, entitled ‘My chief is Chinese’. I found it very entertaining, indeed. She is called Carolina and her family name es Miyata. This work has been published shortly after than Lenovo, a Chinese company, had purchased the European division belonging to IBM hardware. She, I refer to the author of the book, undertakes very high level managing responsibilities at Orange Spain.
“Yesterday morning a group of neighbour women, wearing their jellabahs until the feet and chadors covering their heads, said to me ‘good day’. As always, they told that with very good manners. They were chatting with an Indian girl, dressed in bluejeans. She looked really charming. Her boyfriend, a blond guy 1 metter and 80 cms high, was also chatting in Spanish with his ‘purest’ German accent.
“But just have a look throuh the pages of Spaniard newspapers. We bump our noses every day on facts like the purchase of the Dutch financial giant ABN/AMRO. One of the buyers, a Spaniard company indeed, is called Banco Santander.
“Telefónica´s been working for years along with the Chinese Goverment and the also Spaniard IESE has gotten its toe in one of the doors of the Great Wall, stablishing a brand new business school in that country.
Even el Real Madrid (soccer club) has built a soccer school for children in Indonesia with the help of Excem Group. And follows. Therefore, and according to my point of view, the question to rise should be perhaps why not eastwind?, instead of why eastwind?”.
Q:Environment,cooperation and gourmet items on a management magazine?
Eva González: “As I said before, the world of business, or at least so we see in eastwind, consist on a whole range of personal relations aimed to obtaining an economic benefit. And the personal relationships are made on the basis of good information and also on the basis of everyday convivence, on the basis of doing things together, eating around a table, or during an incentive trip, for instance.
“Certainly, money and luxury often go hand in hand, but as explained above, do not always gourmet is expensive. Many business meals consist of a pile of sandwiches or of sushi, or dim sum, but in any case, why not eating a well cooked bowl of noodles instead of a soggy wet mass of noodles?. If we do not know where the right provider is, it is very difficult to ‘cook’ a balanced and sustainable business too. eastwind may also help the businesspeople with the search of the best provider.
“Referring to the environment, even the 2007 Nobel Award of Peace recognizes the importance of the fight against climate change. Protecting the environment means producing and employing clean energies. Business segments as the wind, biofuels, solar energy or hydrogen manufactures, R&D and production, have become key sectors to be developed in some countries, such as the Asians, which are heavily populated and, leaving aside Japan, will be more populated in future.
“Because of that, the general interest related to the care of the planet, which affects us all, joins an economic interest, as there are business opportunities around the world , and especially in Asia, related both with the ecological energies, and with the purification and not pollution of water.All these without mentioning the waste management, another chapter to consider. The cooperation for development is a sort of moral and social duty.But it is also true that many of the cooperation projects generate nice business opportunities for companies. eastwind is aware of the above mentioned facts, hence it will include information on all these items”.
Q: Emerge the East, understood in a broad sense, as the centre of global business for the XXI century?
Eva González: “It is not emerging as the centre, I would say that it already is the center.
Not forgetting other markets, of course, the fact is that the fast growth in Asia makes the world of business, not only look, but stablish itself in cities such as Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai or Delhi. But we cannot leave aside the countries in Eastern Europe. Some of them already integrated in the European Union and other, like Turkey, that will become members in future.
“Let´s focus on two simple examples. The GDP of China grows about 12% annually, India around 8%. Both countries are shaping themselves, not only as places where costs of manufacturing are much lower than in Europe, but as destination markets for our products and services.
“According to data published by the Chinese Government, the population inside the nation of the Great Wall had exceeded 1.300 billion people in 2006.
A large part of 2006 Chinese population belonged to the low and middle low class. Just a very small amount of Chinese citizens were high and middle high class people in terms of income. In year 2043 it is expected that there will be 1.550 billion of Chinese wallets, many of them middle and high class, by then.
“Today, India with its population over 1.095 billion of human beings, accounts with a widespread middle class that becomes larger each day. No businessman or businesswoman may fail to consider these facts.
Despite the handicaps which must overcome these countries to grow, the economic centre of the world is migrating to the East.
“On one hand we have China and India, and on the other hand we have Eastern Europe. Eastern Europe, which is being integrated into the European Union. This fact is increasing right today , not only the presence at home of EU citizens and non-EU citizens coming from these countries, but also the business, human and cultural exchange, with them.
“Eastwind just aims to inform and tries to convey all the above mentioned trends which are as spontaneous, free and difficult to curb, like the wind which lends its name to our publication.”
Imagen sobre el titular.- © Eastwind 2007
