A source of light

Foursquare Day 2010 Beijing Swarm Badge, originally uploaded by Illuminant Partners.

Social media enthusiasts gathered at the Apple Store in Sanlitun Village on April 16 with the common goal of unlocking Foursquare’s coveted Swarm badge. A small group soon grew to more than 50 people, all of whom had a mobile device in their hands.

And then… we did it. The Swarm Badge was unlocked for the first time in five thousand years of Chinese history on Foursquare Day 2010 in Beijing.

A group of Illuminant’s clients and friends (new and old) trekked down to FUBAR speakeasy, where the Foursquare Day celebrations continued.

Monitoring the number of check-ins

Checking-in with Nate Bonilla-Warford, creator of Foursquare Day

Live video check-in with Foursquare Day creator “Mayor” Nate Bonilla-Warford (@NateBW).  Illuminant’s Beijing practice manager and art director Joel Danielson (@lhiver) took on Mayoral duties for the Beijing Swarm end.

Charlie Flint was the lucky winner of the Illuminant Partners prize voucher

Lucky Charlie Flint (@charlieflint) won himself one of three prize options in the Illuminant Partners Foursquare Day draw:

1. Logo design
2. Business card design
3. Outdoor photoshoot – 5 final images with basic retouch

Jim Boyce (BeijingBoyce) after finding out he didn't get his Swarm badge!

So what do you say Beijing? Now that most of us have gotten our Swarm badge, Super Swarm in 2011?

Illuminant Partners was enormously proud to have facilitated the world’s first “social media holiday” in the capital of the world’s most populous nation. Many thanks to our friends and colleagues for supporting this fun initiative!

Is our CEO the first Foursquare user in Beijing to get the special Foursquare Day badge?

Beijing was one of the first of major cities to lead and implement the recent idea to globally celebrate“Foursquare Day” on April 16^th, and our team at Illuminant is super excited to champion the event in China’s capital. Our chief executive, Simon Cousins, has been a key driver on the global Foursquare Day organizing team from our new office in Tampa, Florida.  The Beijing Illuminant team has been responsible for organizing and promoting the Beijing day’s activities, and we’re getting help from local bloggers, Twitter users,and businesses.

Foursquare, for those who don’t know, is a location-based, geo-social networking website and mobile application available for iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Palm devices (with more platforms currently under development). The app is rapidly gaining popularity in a city where we are continuously and voraciously on the hunt for hip new restaurants, shops, nightlife, and drinking establishments. Users rack up points on a weekly leaderboard as they “check-in” to venues, categorising, tagging, and tacking helpful tips on them along the way. Special “badges” are unlocked for certain milestones or achievements, such as numbers of “check-ins” on a weeknight,or “checking-in” to specifically tagged venues such as gyms, aiports, and ferry terminals. By frequenting their favourite haunts, users in the local community often generate friendly competition among venue clientele by attempting to earn and hold down the title of “Mayor”. It’s rather amusing (if not discouraging) to be “ousted” by a more active user when they steal the title!

Foursquare.com describes the application as “a cross between a friend-finder, a social city-guide and a game that rewards you for doing interesting things. We aim to build things to not only help you keep up with the places your friends go, but that encourage you to discover new places and challenge you to explore your neighborhood in new ways.”

So, you might ask, why April 16?

Well, to put it plainly, April is the fourth month, and 4²=16 = 4/16 

The idea for Foursquare Day was dreamed up in Tampa, Florida, by optometrist and social-media maven Nate Bonilla-Warford. He posted the idea on Foursquare’s feedback site, GetSatisfaction.com, and within weeks, dozens of cities around the world had jumped on board to get involved in the grass-roots planning.

One of the most exciting challenges on this day is to unlock the “Swarm” badge, which is achieved when more than 50 users are “checked-in” to the same venue at (or around) the same time, and for the third time in history, Foursquare Inc.  have decided to open the “Super Swarm” badge especially for Foursquare Day. This may be unlocked and awarded at any venue that draws 250+ “check-ins” over a 3-hour period on Foursquare Day. We are all feeling the excitement about Foursquare users meeting up aftercrossing paths (and stealing Mayorships from each other) all around town, from Wudaokou and  Zhongguancun to Sanlitun and the CBD.

We’re set to gather at The Village in Sanlitun and begin our round of “Swarm check-ins”at the Apple Store at 8.30pm, with drink specials available at Blue Frog (also in The Village), Purple Haze’s new Bistro location (at Dongsiliutiao), and at Fubar after 9pm for the wrap-up party. Additional specials may pop up through the week.

Like many other cities and venues participating in Foursquare Day, (#4sqday on Twitter), Fubar has issued a friendly “challenge” to the infamous The VIPER Room club on LA’s Sunset Strip, to see who will reach the highest number of “check-ins”, and we’re hoping to blow the roof off Beijing with the Super Swarm badge (can we pull it off?)

This is a fantastic opportunity for small/medium businesses to engage the rapidly expanding social-media savvy clientele with free advertising and exposure by creating and promoting special offers. Geo-social media is increasingly on the top of the trend, andbusiness owners would be wiseto jump on board and check out atFoursquare.com/businesses.

Follow @4sqdayBeijing on Twitter and visit http://4sqday.comfor more information.  And talk to Illuminant Partners for a world class social media campaign for your business!

北京_­

ACBA09 flyer, originally uploaded by Illuminant Partners.  Illuminant’s Chief Executive Simon Cousins and Director Catherine Davis are pictured front-and-centre.

The 17th Annual AustCham Australia-China Business Awards were held in Beijing for the first time on Thursday 3 December 2009.

Illuminant was the fortunate winner of the ACBA08 award for entrepreneurial excellence. We want to congratulate all the winners of the 2009 awards, and especially Galaxy Resources, who won the entrepreneurial award this year.

The full media release issued by AustCham Beijing can be read here.

Sino-Austrian Economic Forum 2010 (1), originally uploaded by Illuminant Partners.

Sino-Austrian Economic Forum was held in Beijing on 20 January 2010. Illuminant Partners was proud to be engaged by the Austrian government to support and photograph the proceedings.

Translation Center, originally uploaded by Illuminant Partners.

As we all know, language is, in most cases, far more than just a number of symbols and expressions. Instead, language is a reflection of a nation’s civilization, its unique thinking and behavior patterns and its geographic location as well.

我们都知道，在大多数情况下，语言不仅仅是一系列象征和表现形式。相反，语言能够反映一个国家的文明程度、独特的思维与行为模式以及地理位置。

As a result, translators must do more than merely translating from one language to the other. Translators are also playing the roles of editors and copywriters, as they need to polish their translated work and make it sound as natural and elegant as possible in the target language. Here arises an inevitable dilemma for translators, as they are expected to be faithful to the original language and are usually not encouraged to change the content and sentence orders in the original language and are thus influenced by the original language. That’s why many knowledgeable Chinese call translators “dancers with shackles”. Most of the time, translated texts are slightly, if not too much, different from those directly written by a native copywriter due to different ways of thinking and structure development. At Illuminant, to maintain the high quality of our translation work, our language team always tries its best to offset the abovementioned influences by polishing the text afterwards and by always having a designated internal third party to contribute as a polisher to proofread our finished translation work in an objective manner.

因此，译员要做的不仅仅是将一种语言翻译到另一种语言。他们同时还发挥着编辑和撰稿人的作用，因为他们需要润色自己的翻译成果，从而尽可能地使翻译的目标语言变得自然而优雅。而译员在这里就难免陷入一种困境，因为他们仍然需要忠实于原文，不轻易变更原文的内容或是语句的排列顺序，所以他们将或多或少受到原始语言的影响。这就是为什么人们将译员称为 “带着枷锁的舞者” 。在大多数情况下，翻译出来的文本与直接撰写的文案，二者有一定的区别，这是因为不同的语言总是有不同的思维方式和文章构架。为了尽量减少上述影响，在朔光，我们翻译团队总是尽力保证在翻译完成之后对译文进行润色与审译，并在交稿之前让其他同事以客观的角度再次审查译文，从而保持翻译工作的质量。

So our translation procedure is usually consisted of three parts: translatio； internal proofreading and polishing； external polishing, before we hand our work over to our clients, and from time to time, post-translation communication with clients is carried out to best understand and satisfy our clients’ specific needs and requirements.

因此，我们的翻译工作程序通常包括三个部分：翻译；翻译团队内部的校对与润色；其他同事的审译（有时是我们亲爱的媒体部门的同事）。另外，我们会不时地与客户展开积极的沟通，从而更好地了解并满足他们的特殊要求与需要。

Also, the Illuminant language team takes pride in a number of house glossaries we have compiled for each of our major clients based on their specific fields, such as architecture, mining, high-tech, tourism, and other sectors which our agency is expert in. Glossaries are very important for all of our language-related work at Iluminant, because most of our clients are long-term retainer-based and thus keeping our copywriting and choice of words professional, accurate and consistent is a key priority for our language work. That’s when our glossaries come into play: ensuring accuracy and consistency.

此外，令翻译团队倍感骄傲的是我们针对主要客户以及他们所处的领域而汇编的词汇表，这些领域涉及建筑、矿业、高科技等等。这些词汇表对朔光而言，是一种非常重要的语言工具。这是因为我们的大多数客户都是长期客户，所以保持语言服务的准确性、一致性与专业性是语言工作的重中之重。而通过使用我们所编撰的词汇表，我们就可以简易地找到过去使用的所有专业词汇以及它们的特殊用途。

Graceful language and elegant wording is always appreciated and enjoyed like a refined art. But there are occasional cases where clients don’t want their copywriting – words that powerfully represent themselves and their products – to be “high-brow”. In other words, they want “plain” language to represent them (in the Western sense, this might be thought of as “tabloid” language). When this happens, we will actively communicate with them to know about their specific needs and “play down” our choice of words accordingly, in order to cater to their special requirements. After all, clients’ needs and satisfaction form the priority. But the good news is: most clients LOVE beautiful language the way they appreciate refined arts.

优美的语言、典雅的措辞，如同精致的艺术一般，是一种愉悦的欣赏与享受。但是，有时有些客户却不希望我们为他们撰写的文案太过“风雅” 。换句话说，他们希望用“平实”的语言来表达自己。在这种情况下，我们将积极地与他们展开沟通，从而了解他们的具体需求，并在措辞方面为他们量体裁衣，以满足他们的特殊要求。毕竟，客户的需求与满意是市场经济的重点所在。而好消息就是：我们的大多数客户，正如喜爱精致的艺术一般，也喜爱美丽的言辞。

Article by Illuminant’s head of language services, Monica Lin （林敏）

BEIJING, CHINA 15th June 2009 SinoTech Group (www.sinotechgroup.com.cn), the leading Chinese full service digital marketing company, announced today that has entered into a strategic partnership with Illuminant Partners, a Beijing-based multidisciplinary public relations and strategic communications agency. Under this agreement, SinoTech Group will provide Illuminant Partners with digital marketing products and services for their clients in China and the Asian Pacific region.

“I am excited about this partnership with Illuminant Partners. They are an independent PR firm of a similar age to that of SinoTech Group and have a very professional approach to their clients. I am pleased that SinoTech Group can provide Illuminant Partners with digital solutions such as Online Reputation Management, Search and Social Media Marketing as well as Online Analytics and Measurement tools,” said Dr. Mathew McDougall, Chief Executive Officer of SinoTech Group.

“With a trend towards more digital integration within PR, especially social media, we are one of a movement of new-style PR agencies offering highly-digitally integrated campaigns to our clients. Staying ahead of the digital curve is the differentiating factor in our ability to achieve superior communications outcomes for our clients, so it is important for Illuminant Partners to work with likeminded strategic partners” said Simon Cousins, Chief Executive of Illuminant Partners, “SinoTech Group has an outstanding history of innovation and creative approaches within the digital media market, and we expect their approach to add tremendous value in achieving and exceeding the communications objectives of our clients.”, continued Mr. Cousins.

For media enquiries, please contact Ms Chen ZHU at Illuminant Partners, +86 10 5879-4050 or chen.zhu-at-illuminantpartners.com

Ends.

Beijing, 1st June 2009 – The Green Office Alliance has appointed Beijing-based Illuminant Partners as its PR and strategic communications agency. The Green Office Alliance is the world’s first multi-company green building and furnishing products alliance.

Following a competitive pitch, Illuminant Partners’ appointment – for PR, corporate identity development, digital marketing and experiential marketing – was made in order to support the GOA’s market introduction, strategically position its brand and publicize the initiative to key opinion leaders and decision makers in China’s architecture, building construction, interior design and real estate industries.

The GOA consists of four global leaders in sustainable commercial interiors: Haworth, InterfaceFLOR, Owens-Corning and Philips. It is has been formed as a collective of like-minded companies promoting sustainability and green practices in the workplace. The GOA’s primary objective is to elevate the levels of sustainability in commercial offices and buildings.

The official launch of the GOA will be made at Beijing’s Eco Expo on June 17th, 2009.

The GOA offers designers, owners and users of commercial interiors a continuum of a high-quality, cost efficient and environmentally sustainable furniture, fittings and building products. Used together, a commercial interior which utilizes products from the GOA helps to reduce negative impacts on the environment as well as achieving excellent occupant satisfaction.

Illuminant’s Amy Meng, an expert in innovative and environmental-friendly construction sector marketing services in China will head the account from Illuminant’s Beijing office.

About the Green Office Alliance’s member companies

Haworth, Inc.

Haworth partners with local suppliers, environmental experts, customers and the community across Asia Pacific, The Middle East and Latin America to innovate world-class practices in product design and sustainability.

As a leader in office furniture and architectural interiors with a worldwide presence, Haworth products are informed by a lifetime of global learning. We have nurtured a corporate culture committed to superior customer service, environmental responsibility, and engineering innovation.

Haworth has been a pioneer in the China market as the first multinational office furniture company to establish its own manufacturing facility eleven years ago in Shanghai. Haworth made another first when we moved our Regional Headquarters from the Puxi zone of Shanghai to the fast growing Pudong zone. The Haworth Organic Workspace is now in the tallest building in Asia, The Shanghai World Financial Centre. Haworth Ideation Group is Haworth’s research unit that aligns organizations with their goals and visions.

www.haworth-asia.com

InterfaceFLOR

InterfaceFLOR is the largest modular carpet manufacturer in the world. With over 30 years of global experience, our goal is to provide you with innovation, beauty, performance, service, value and environmentally responsible products and processes in every 50cm*50cm tile.

At InterfaceFLOR, we’ve made it our mission to go way beyond green product
attributes. Every creative, manufacturing and building decision we make is intended to help us achieve zero environmental footprint by 2020 and give you the most fashionable, high performing and environmentally well-rounded products in the industry. And we call it Mission Zero.

www.interfaceflor.com

Owens Corning

Owens Corning, the inventor of fiberglass, is a world leader in building materials systems and composite solutions, delivering a broad range of high-quality products and services.

We define sustainability as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the world that we leave to the future. This approach to business energizes our people, creates growth opportunities for our customers and drives value for our shareholders.

To accomplish that, we focus on three strategic initiatives:

1 Greening our operations- achieving specific environmental footprint reductions
2 Greening our products – continuously improving the life-cycle impact of our products
3 Accelerating energy efficiency improvements in the built environment

Sustainability at Owens Coring is a journey of continuous improvement. We believe that the world is a better place thanks to our many products and services that help conserve energy and other precious resources. Owens Corning makes the world more energy efficient.

www.owenscorning.com
www.owenscorning.com.cn

Philips

Philips is no. 1 in the global lighting market, and part of Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI). As a world leader in healthcare, lifestyle and lighting, Philips integrates technologies and design into people-centric solutions, based on fundamental customer insights and the brand promise of “sense and simplicity”.

Sustainability is one of the focal points of our strategy, and we use our expertise to help combat global challenges – i.e. climate change – by offering business solutions in all markets that reduce our ecological footprint and enhance social equity.

Philips was the first to introduce the energy-saving light bulb back in 1980. Our latest EcoVision program, which is our fifth multi-year plan, seeks to make our product portfolio ever more efficient, and sets targets to expand our investments in Green Innovations, increase revenues from green products, and improve the energy efficiency of our facilities.

www.lighting.philips.com

Ends.

Story at Marketing online here

Story at Media online here

Illuminant’s chief executive, director of operations, and Australia’s ambassador to China

Illuminant Partners wins 2008 Australia-China Business Entrepreneurial Award

November 10th, 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Hong Kong — Illuminant Partners, a Beijing based multi-disciplinary public relations and strategic communications agency has won 2008’s AustCham Australia-China Business Entrepreneurial Award.

Announced by CNN Hong Kong anchor Andrew Stevens at the Awards gala dinner on Thursday November 6th, Illuminant Partners was one of more than sixty entrants to the awards, now in their 16th year. The ACBA Business Entrepreneurial Award is given annually in recognition of an Australian-originated business which has demonstrated entrepreneurial excellence in greater China.

Australia’s ambassador to China H.E. Dr Geoff Raby described the award as “the most sought-after award of its kind outside of Australia”. Illuminant’s chief executive Simon Cousins said “Our ACBA award recognises entrepreneurial excellence in China, and to that end, we are honoured to have been elected this year’s winner by our peers. The award belongs to our entire team and also to our fantastic clients, without whom Illuminant would not have been able to develop and implement such interesting and effective campaigns over 2008.”

Roger Wolfe, Chairman of the Australian Chamber of Commerce Beijing said “AustCham Beijing extends sincere congratulations to Illuminant Partners on winning at the 2008 AustCham Australia-China Business Awards. Illuminant’s innovative team proved they have the passion, vision and commitment needed to overcome stiff competition and come up trumps.”

Illuminant is based in Beijing with operations throughout China’s mainland and Hong Kong. The agency’s core team first began working together in 2004 and began life as Illuminant Partners in June 2007. Illuminant supports the public relations and strategic communications needs of many of the region’s best brands, including the world’s largest insurance broker Aon, 151-year-old global design and engineering consultant Hyder, China’s largest foreign gold miner Sino Gold and dozens of foreign government agencies and SMEs. Illuminant employs a staff of 25 across its Beijing and Hong Kong operations.

The 2008 Australia-China Business Awards were announced at a gala dinner at Hong Kong’s Grand Hyatt Hotel on November 6th in the presence of Australia’s ambassador, all of Australia’s consuls-general, Austrade’s senior trade commissioner and more than 150 guests from across China.

About the AustCham Australia-China Business Awards (ACBA):

Since its inception in 1993 the AustCham Australia-China Business Awards is a means of recognising companies that have worked to deliver Australian products or services to the greater China region. The awards have grown in stature over the years and are now recognised as a high profile celebration of business success among Australian business communities in the region.

The organizers of the ACBA include the Australian Chamber of Commerce Hong Kong & Macau, AustCham Beijing, AustCham Shanghai, AustCham South China, the Australian & New Zealand Chamber of Commerce Taipei, the Australia-China Business Council and the Hong Kong Australian Business Association. The ABCA is fully recognized and supported by the Australian Government and the Australian Trade Commission.

Tourism Austria and Travel Channel China, originally uploaded by Illuminant Partners.

Dr. Petra Stolba, CEO of the Austrian National Tourism Office, visited Beijing as one of her major stops on her tour throughout Asia. In cooperation with our friend and Head of the Austrian National Tourist Office Beijing, Josef Stockinger (who amazed journalists and travel agents with his witty speech in fluent Mandarin), Illuminant Partners had the pleasure to arrange an interview with Travel Channel China and Dr. Stolba during a tourism workshop at the Landmark Hotel today.

Austria, which ranks among the top ten tourist destinations in the world, welcomes more than 170,000 Chinese tourists every year, making China the third largest overseas tourist market for the beautiful country in the heart of Europe.

In 2009, Austria will focus on marketing the 200th anniversary of the death of the outstanding composer Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), who started his career as a member of the oldest boys choir in the world, the Vienna Boys’ Choir. The Austrian city of Linz will also be the European Capital of Culture in 2009.

In her interview Dr. Stolba was confident that an ever increasing number of Chinese tourists will discover the beauty and cultural heritage of Austria and invited the audience of Travel Channel China to come and see the home of “Sisi gongzhu” and “Sound of Music” themselves and to discover how Austria has changed in its more than 1,000 years of history.

Blog posting by Illuminant’s Director of Account Services, Anja Knass.