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: Building 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, a lawyer who’s been working as journalist for more than 15 years up today. She has been barrister for over 10 years and got devoted full time to journalism during the last 5. “A vocation that may well lead one to the red numbers, I must confess,” she says. Currently to her responsibilities as Editor of Eastwind she adds contributions and interviews in other media. In 2007 she totaled up 3 years collaborating as a freelance contributor with a radio programme specialised in tourism, which is called The World in your hands.
“A really fluent and dynamic media, as real as life itself”, she says referring to the radio with a loving sparkle in her eyes, and adds: “The best in this job is the contact with other human beings”.
Question (Q): Which kind of readers is Eastwind tailored to?
Eva González (EG): “ Eastwind magazine & newsletter is a new publication specialised in global management and lifestyle basically. Our aim is to keep well informed and serve to all those business men and women, either already operating in a global scope, or thinking about globalizing their companies. We believe that the business world is based on human relationships and these reñationships cannot be fluent without understanding who is negotiating with us on the same table.
“Nobody can do business successfully without understanding the people who are working with us in the same company, and many of them may be they come from countries far away from ours. That’s why in Eastwind, management is understood in a very open way, including entrepreneurial skills, but also culture, art, social uses, protocol, gastronomy – it is often said that we are what we eat- and many other things that are to do with leisure and life outside of work.
“Our aim is to be useful to the businessmen and businesswomen who act or want to act with a global scope. Many of them speak Spanish, but many others not, although all of them usually can at least read in English. Hence our name is composed of two English words: East (which means the East) and wind (which means moving air or even human breath). With the aim to better serve the global business community, our magazine accounts with an English edition. Yes, Eastwind talks in Spanish as it is born in Spain, but we deliver as well an international version in English.
“I´ve talked before about managers, but eastwind is able to entertain, so the magazine is 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. 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 take a close look to the Cheap & chic subsection. Because not always the best choice is the most expensive.
“In addition Eastwind will offer multimedia contents very soon. In the TV and Radio sections, our readers will find interviews and repports, as well as many Eastwind videos. We illustrate our whole editorial content with nice images, but delivering that hot stuff to listen and watch will be our next step, so….
“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?
EG: “I had been working my first year as journalist specialised in the restaurant branch, when I realized that ‘some Asian dishes and ingredients have become usual in our diet, while nobody was watching’. Then I began to consider the fact that I am sold my everyday bread by a Chinese girl and her Romanian mate at the bakery.
One Spanish girl whose father is Japanese has launched recently in Madrid her book, titled ‘My chief is Chinese’. I found it very entertaining, indeed. She is called Carolina and her family name is Miyata. This work has been published shortly after that Lenovo, a Chinese company, had purchased the European hardware division of IBM. 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. Her boyfriend, a blond guy 1 metter and 80 cms high, was chatting with her in Spanish with his ‘purest’ German accent.
“But just having a look throuh the pages of Spaniard newspapers, one bump the nose every day on facts like the purchase of the Dutch financial giant ABN/AMRO. One of the buyers, a Spaniard company is called Banco Santander.
Telefónica´s been working for years along with the Chinese Goverment and the also Spaniard IESE has put its foot on the inner side of the Great Wall, stablishing a brand new business school in China.
“Even el Real Madrid (soccer club) has built a soccer school for children in Indonesia with the help of Excem Group. And so it 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?
EG: “As I said before, the business world, or at least so we think in Eastwind, consist of a wide range of win win personal relationships finally aimed to generating an economic benefit. But win win personal relationships just can be built on the basis of good information and also on the basis of doing things together, eating around the same table, or during an incentive trip, for instance.
Certainly, money and luxury often go hand in hand, but as I explained above, not always most gourmet means most expensive. Many business meals consist of a pile of sandwiches or 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 sustainable business. Eastwind may also help businesspeople with the search of the best providers.
On the environment point, even the 2007 Nobel Award of Peace recognizes the importance of the fight against climate change. Protecting the environment means clean producing and the use of clean energies. Business segments such 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 those accross Asia, which are heavily populated and, leaving aside Japan, will be more populated in the future.
That’s why, taking care of our planet meets the needs of our readers related to obtaining economic benefits, as there are business opportunities around the world , and especially in Asia, in the field of both the ecological energies, and drinkable water. All these without mentioning the management of waste, another chapter to consider in the search of business opportunities.
“The cooperation for development is a sort of moral duty. But it is also true that many of the cooperation projects generate nice business opportunities for companies. Eastwind is aware of all the above mentioned facts, hence it will include information on all these items”.
Q: Is it the East, understood in a broad sense, emerging as the centre of global business for the XXI century?
EG: “Not emerging I’d dare to say that the East is already in the center.
Not forgetting other markets, of course, the fact is that the fast growth in Asia makes the world of business, not only watch carefully, but stablish itself in such cities as Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai or Delhi. But we shouldn’t fortget the countries in Eastern Europe. Some of them already integrated in the European Union and other, like Turkey, that will perhaps become members in future.
“Let´s have a look on two 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 the data published by the Chinese Government, the population inside the nation of the Great Wall exceeded 1.300Bn people in 2006.
“A large part of the Chinese population belonged in 2006 to the low and middle low class. Just a very small amount of Chinese citizens could be considered as members of the high and mid-upscale class in terms of income. In the year 2043 it is expected that there will be 1.550Bn of Chinese wallets, many of them mid and big sized.
Today, India with its population over 1.095 Bn 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 no doubt migrating to the East.
“On one hand we have China and India, and on the other hand we have Eastern Europe. Eastern European countries, which are being integrated into the European Union. Not only the the number of other EU citizens and non-EU citizens coming from these countries in our homelands is increasing, but also the business, human and cultural exchange, with those citizens and countries.
Eastwind is just aimed to tell about and to convey all the above mentioned trends which are as spontaneous, free and difficult to curb, as the wind which lends its name to our magazine.
Image over the headline.- © Eastwind 2007
