Ying’s Blog

The very reason that we have March 8th marked as International Women Day is that women have not been regarded as equal to the opposite gender!

Believe it or not, I grew up in red China being told ‘women hold half of the sky’ or 妇女半边天。It hadn’t occurred to me that it’s not actually how most of the world looks at us until one day I received an email written by a female secretary that addressed the entire leadership team as ‘Dear gentlemen’. A wake-up call. We’ve got much work to do before we truly hold half of the sky’.

It’s an international women’s day today, it should be a No Pink Phone day too!

What a match! Both Canadian and US hockey teams played extremely well during the Olympic Gold match.

I felt so proud of being Canadian!

The take-away learning from this incredible game for me as an entrepreneur is never never never give-up!

I dropped by Anna’s (the CEO at Swedish Media Association www.tu.se) new office yesterday to catch up on the news and gossips in 2010. I met Anna a couple of years ago, and we have kept periodic yet spontaneous getting-togethers ever since. She is an energetic and brilliant person who is not afraid to voice her opinions and I admire very much these qualities of hers! I believe we need more women thinker leaders like her.

Interestingly, big part of our conversation was about iPad. We definitely share the fascination and passion for this mysterious gadget which has only been seen in the videos and pictures. Unlike any other gadgets, I feel significantly more vibes from female segment of the market towards the iPad. I bet most woman readers of this post will agree with me.

The Chinese Tiger year has just arrived! Wish everyone a great tiger year!

Are you a tiger? Check out the following years, if you were born in one of these years then you’re a tiger:
1938    31 Jan 1938 - 18 Feb 1939 (Earth)
1950    17 Feb 1950 - 05 Feb 1951 (Metal)
1962    05 Feb 1962 - 24 Jan 1963 (Water)
1974    23 Jan 1974 - 10 Feb 1975 (Wood)
1986    09 Feb 1986 - 28 Jan 1987 (Fire)
1998    28 Jan 1998 - 15 Feb 1999 (Earth)
2010    14 Feb 2010 - 02 Feb 2011 (Metal)

Go tiger!

I’m amazed by high quality of the blogging activities in Sweden.

We’ve just got the results for Stora Bloggpriset 2009. The winner list can be found at the http://storabloggpriset.se/.

My favorites are:

Mode
Kenza

Design & inredning
Emmas designblogg

It always makes me extra happy every time I come across a young lady who has a fine taste. Kenza is an amazing girl who blogs genuinely and delightfully.

I found Emmas blog very refreshing, not only because it is in English and makes it much easier for me to follow! The materials she shares inspires much creativity! I just love her blogs.

I was waiting for the latest Apple creation with full anticipation!! I felt like a kid waiting for Santa to arrive!

As always, Steve Jobs presentation was great and inspirational! I fully appreciate the notion of focusing on a few tasks and make them outstanding. Apart from the designs, there are two things  I love about Apple stuff. First, they perform the major tasks way superior than others on the block and second (more important for me) is that they create a seamless eco system surround modern beings who have modern needs such as multimedia consumption, mobile computing, and ubiquitous and all-the-time connection: my apple gadgets are synced seamlessly (I don’t need my engineering Ph.D degree to do this), I navigate through my computing tasks at a much more efficient pace (if compared to my many years experience with PCs), I got connected to my iPhone/Air, or multimedia contents, or people wherever or whenever I want (most of the time depending on network coverage).

Recall my passionate years at Motorola’s research labs, we were plotting the dream of a seamless and connected world. Now I see my dream unfold through Apple’s eco-system. iPad is what I have been wanting for our home, a great link between iPhone and MacBook. Now I’ve got a five year old girl, I can see it’s also a great thing for young kids who want to share photos, music, videos with friends and browse web to satisfy their curiosity. My daughter already asked one for her birthday! Certainly, I’m obliged to book one for her. I know I’ll borrow from her to show recipes on the kitchen bench when I cook up new dishes.

Now having said all the great things about Apple stuff, they are not completely perfect without any default. This morning, I couldn’t help noticing the article: iPad name draws feminine hygiene jokes. People reasoned that no women was involved in the marketing team. I don’t have any problems with iPad, however I was indeed made to wonder the same thing but for another feature in iPhone. The virtual keyboard on the iPhone is virtually impossible for women with long finger nails. Some of my friends who own iPhones had to give up for alternatives. If the developers were women, would they come up with the same virtual keyboard solution? Even with a great company like Apple, we still need No Pink Phone movement, don’t we!

We have this playful SummerWind computer skins available now at store.la-yin.com, and Telia Boutiques and some Apple resellers.

We have a few black snowflakes in pink background to give a little punk hint.

The daring red ring around the black skin is for those who are not afraid of being fashionable and stylish!

I’m among the lucky ones! I have been enjoying the generous support from many people, in particular from 200 something LA YIN panel members worldwide.

On the 8th December, we’ll hold our first panel mingle party in Stockholm. Meeting other like-minded women and have the networking going among the women members are fun things to do!

I can’t wait!!

Last night, at the dinner party hosted by Canadian ambassador Alexsandra Volkoff and Air Canada, we marked the event of 100 days counting down to Winter Olympics in Vancouver!

It’s been over five years since my last visit to my second home Montreal. Sipping Canadian wines including my favorite ice wine and tasting Canadian seafood prepared by a top Canadian chef, I felt very much nostalgic. One of my most beloved images of Canada is its incredible colors of maple leaves in the fall. The countryside in the fall looks like an impressionist oil painting. One day these impressions will find ways into LA YIN’s design expressions.

Go Canada! To my Swedish friends, see you in the final of the hockey game!

Stockholm is a place where one finds trends in the air, on the streets…. Among many fashion, design parties, there is the annual Stockholm Trend Gala organized by wonderfully stylish and well connected Maria Forssén who is also on the LA YIN panel.

The lucky few, who came to the registration in time to receive our LA YIN computer bags, seemed to be delighted by the nice surprise. I was very pleased to see the enthusiasm!

We are proud to be among the sponsors for this wonderful event.