Author: Serkadis

As you might have heard before if you read McKinsey reports, the New York Times or just about any technology news site, data scientists are in high demand. Heck, the Harvard Business Review called it the sexiest job of the 21st century. But landing a gig as a data scientist isn’t easy — especially a top-notch gig at a major web or e-commerce company where merely talented people are a dime a dozen.

However, companies are starting to talk openly about what they look for in data scientists, including the skills someone should have and what they’ll need to know to survive an interview. I spent a day at the Predictive Analytics World conference on Monday and heard both Netflix and Orbitz give their two cents. That’s also the same day Hortonworks published a blog post about how to build a data science team.

Granted that “data scientist” is a nebulous term — perhaps as much so as “big data” — these tips (a mashup of all three sources) are still broadly applicable. If you want to make the leap from guy who knows data to data scientist, I suggest paying attention.

1. Know the core competencies.

For most of us, there’s readin, ‘ritin’ ‘rithmetic. For data scientists, there’s SQL, statistics, predictive modeling and programming (probably Python). If you don’t have at least a grounding in these skills, you’re probably not getting through the door, in part because they form a common language that lets people from different backgrounds speak to each other.

Hortonworks’ Omer Mendelvitch describes the ideal data scientist as occupying a place on the spectrum between a software engineer and a research scientist. In distinguishing a great engineer, mathematician or data analyst from a data scientist, programming skills are probably the biggest variable. That’s because being able to write code means you’ll have an easier time testing out your hypotheses and algorithms, hacking through certain problems and generally thinking in ways that actually to the products your employer is building.

Source: Hortonworks

Chris Pouliot, director of algorithms and analytics at Netflix, said even being able to “pseudo-code” might be good enough if someone is otherwise a strong candidate. You can pick up SQL or Python or whatever you need pretty quickly, he noted.

Or, hinted Orbitz VP of Advanced Analytics Sameer Chopra, you could just suck it up and learn Python now: “If you were to leave today and ask ‘What specific skills should I learn?’: Python.”

2. Know a little more.

Of course, just meeting the minimum requirements never got anybody a job (well, almost nobody). What Pouliot is really looking for in a candidate are: an advanced degree in a quantitative field; hands-on experience hacking data using (ideally using Hive, Pig, SQL or Python); good exploratory analysis skills; the ability to work with engineering teams; and the ability to generate and create algorithms and models rather than relying on out-of-the-box ones.

Chopra’s advice was to get up to speed on machine learning, especially if you want to work in Silicon Valley, where machine learning has exploded in popularity. He’s also a big fan of honing those hacking skills because data munging is such a valuable skill when you’re dealing with so many types of data that you need to process so they work together. If you can do quality analytics across myriad data sources, Chopra said, “you can write your own ticket in this day and age.”

Oh, and if you’re planning to work at a startup, he added, R is almost a must-know for anyone whose job will entail statistical analysis.

3. Embrace online learning.

If it all sounds a little daunting, don’t be too worried, Chopra advised. That’s because there are plenty of opportunities to learn these new skills online via both massive open online courses (he’s particularly keen on Udacity’s Computer Science 101 and Andrew Ng’s machine learning course on Coursera) and universities’ own online curricula. Chopra also suggested joining professional groups on LinkedIn, participating in Kaggle competitons and maybe even getting out of the house by going to meetups.

Whatever you’re curious about, though — text mining, natural language processing, deep learning — you can probably find someone willing to teach you for free or nearly free, and any additional skills will help set you apart from the crowd.

4. Learn to tell a story.

Last month at Structure: Data, DJ Patil told me that one of the biggest skill shortcomings in data science is the ability to tell a story with data beyond just pointing to the numbers. Chopra agreed, noting that today’s new visualization tools make it easier to display data in formats that non-scientists might be able to (or at least want to) consume. A corollary of storytelling is good, old-fashioned communication: All the charts in the world won’t make a difference if you can’t communicate to product managers or executives why your findings matter.

Pouliot is a little less sold on communication skills, though — at least sometimes. If you’re an engineer primarily talking to other engineers, he told the room, you probably can speak all the jargon you want. It’s only if someone has a business-facing role when communication really becomes important.

5. Prepare to be tested (aka “Your pedigree means nothing”).

After you’ve learned all these skills, added them to your résumé and talked to a hiring manager about how good you are at them, it’s likely testing time. Prospective Netflix data scientists go through a battery of exercises, Pouliot says, including explaining projects they’ve worked on and questions to determine the depth of their knowledge. They’ll also be asked to devise a framework that solves a problem of the interviewer’s choice.

Chris Pouliot

One thing Pouliot warned about is an over-reliance on what’s on your résumé. Right off the bat, for example, he’ll test the heck out the skills or knowledge that someone claims to ensure they really know it.

Having a Stanford degree and work experience at Google don’t necessarily make someone a shoo-in, either. Pouliot acknowledged during a quick chat after his presentation that he’s been seduced by the perfect resume before — even going so far as to cut a few corners to get someone in for an interview — only to be disappointed in the end. Everyone has to pass the tests, he said, and some of the best applicants on paper crashed and burned very early in the process.

6. Exercise creativity.

It’s during the testing phase at places like Netflix that all those personal skills and experience can come into play. There’s often no right answer when it comes to answering the hypotheticals an interviewer like Pouliot might ask, and he gives bonus points for solutions he’s never seen before. “Creativity is one of the biggest things to look for when hiring data scientists,” he said. Later, he added, “Creativity is king, I think, for a great data scientist.”

Bonus tips for anyone hiring and managing data scientists

Technically, Pouliot’s talk at Predictive Analytics World was about hiring data scientists, but much of the insights were probably more valuable to aspiring data scientists. Some of them, though, we’re definitely for management, possibly at the C-level. A few points to consider:

• Netflix has a standalone data science team that works closely with other departments but ultimately answers to itself. This helps the data scientists collaborate with one another, gives them upward mobility (i.e., they might never become director of marketing, but they could become director of data science) and makes it easier to manage them because everyone speaks the same language so an employee knows his boss knows his stuff.

However, he noted, the alternative approach of embedding data scientists within other departments does bring its own benefits. That type of setup can result in a better alignment of research efforts and business needs, and it can help products get built faster because everyone is on the same page. Pouliot suggests one compromise might be to keep a centralized data science team but locate it physically near the other teams it will be interacting with most often, and other is just to ensure you have representatives from every stakeholder department present for meetings and problem-solving exercises.

• Actually, if you just cannot hire data scientists with all the skills you want them to have, Mendelevitch from Hortonworks suggests a similar tactic. It can be difficult to teach applied math to software engineers and vice versa, so, he writes, “[S]imply build a Hadoop data science team that combines data engineers and applied scientists, working in tandem to build your data products. Back when I was at Yahoo!, that’s exactly the structure we had: applied scientists working together with data engineers to build large-scale computational advertising systems.”

• If you want to retain your good data scientists once you’ve hired them — especially in Silicon Valley where they can walk out the door and get five offers — paying them the market rate is a good start. Additionally, Pouliot said, letting them work on challenging products will keep them happy. Micro-managing them will not.

Feature image courtesy of Shutterstock user Sergey Nivens.

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With what I can only presume is wry sense of humor, Netflix’s Anthony Park and Mark Watson post: “Since Microsoft announced the end of life of Silverlight 5 in 2021, we need to find a replacement some time within the next 8 years”. Well, hell, that ought to be enough time. “We’d like to share some progress we’ve made towards our goal of moving to HTML5 video”.

Last month, Netflix finally brought video streaming to the Samsung ARM Chromebook. I wondered if that might be the future for everything. Sure enough, Netflix confirms.

HTML5 streaming support for the Chromebook is a work in progress. Netflix pursues three W3C-sanctioned specifications: Media Source Extensions, Encrypted Media Extensions and Web Cryptography API.

The Netflixers explain about early implementation:

Our player on this Chromebook device uses the Media Source Extensions and Encrypted Media Extensions to adaptively stream protected content. WebCrypto hasn’t been implemented in Chrome yet, so we’re using a Netflix-developed PPAPI (Pepper Plugin API) plugin which provides these cryptographic operations for now. We will remove this last remaining browser plugin as soon as WebCrypto is available directly in the Chrome browser. At that point, we can begin testing our new HTML5 video player on Windows and OS X.

So Netflix has years to get this right. What scares me is if the joke is on me and they’re serious about the timeframe. 😉

Earlier this week, we looked at a new Kmart ad entitled, “Ship My Pants”. It pretty much came out of left-field. I don’t think anyone would’ve expected an ad like this from Kmart, and perhaps that’s the point. If you haven’t seen it yet, take a moment:

Done? Go ahead, watch it again.

Yeah, that Kmart ad has almost ten million YouTube views. Ten MILLION. A Kmart ad. It hasn’t even been up a week yet.

Naturally, it’s generating a lot of buzz in social media. Here are some recent tweets (about 30 more have come in since I started writing this a few minutes ago):

Kmart itself seems to be having a blast with it:

Whether all of the social buzz leads to more people going to Kmart and having things shipped remains to be seen.

The Nook HD+ came out last December to mixed reviews. The device had a great screen but problematic bugs caused laggy performance and low scores. The company has come out with an updated version and we took a look.

The 9-inch Nook HD+ is a Retina-quality tablet with a very simple mission – it wants to replace the iPad in the entry-level tablet market. It runs an acceptably fast 1.5 GHz processor that powers a 1,920×1,280-pixel screen. This means images are exceptionally bright on the device and video is more than acceptable. When we first looked at the HD+ in December on Fly or Die, I gave the HD+ a fly even with its limited functionality at the time and its lack of a camera.

The B&N party line is that this device is updated and I suspect there’s a reason they are running through these with a new round of reviews. Because I didn’t write a formal review when it first came out – I was far more impressed by the Nook HD – so it’s worth revisiting this tablet.

As it stands, the Nook HD+ is primarily a “dumb tablet” with a few smart tablet features. You can run a number of apps and games and view Nook Video alongside other video from providers like Crackle and Ultraviolet. This update also improves the speaker (it’s still mono) and improves performance.

Sadly, the quirks that plagued the original HD+ are present here. When turning on the device, for example, you see a brief “scrambled” picture that suggests a problem with either the backlight or the LCD. This “fuzz” appears sometimes while moving through apps and screens but it doesn’t show itself when you’re reading a book.

In terms of absolute performance the Nook suggests solidity but not pep. Switching between screens, at least while reading, is acceptably fast and much faster than it was in the initial launch. As for general app performance I saw a bit of an improvement over the previous software iteration but nothing to write home about. The HD+ is awful in direct sunlight, so don’t even think about going outside with it. This is an indoor ereader.

I think, sadly, the 9-inch tablet market has been flattened by the phablets and 7-inchers of the world. That said, the form factor is still good for folks looking for more screen real estate or larger fonts. For those customers, the HD+ excels. It is almost half a pound lighter than the iPad and even lighter than the Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch. At $269 it’s priced just about right and, for a brief period, you could get a Nook Simple Touch for free with purchase. That promotion is over but you do get a $50 credit from Barnes & Noble for books and content.

So here’s what worries me: the ereader world has been stagnant since the holidays and the two-for-one deal, while generous, didn’t seem to bode well for B&N. This very slightly updated HD+ is a solid piece of hardware but it’s still not quite up to, say, the standards of similarly outfitted – but not similarly priced – Android tablets. The Nexus 10, is $100 more than the HD+ and, by all metrics, a better device. The iPad with Retina display is a bit more expensive, to be sure, and may not be exactly the device the novice, ereading user is looking for. However, the performance and build quality is far superior.

So who should get an HD+? I think folks who love to read on bigger screens. While there is a plethora of video content available, that’s not the draw here. The three main draws are, in order, price, price, and price. If you’re already a Nook user and you’re looking for a bigger reader, this may be the model for you. If you’re looking for a real tablet, you may need to look elsewhere.

A handful of Boston-based companies have implemented disaster recovery plans with SunGard Availability Services, primarily due to access restrictions as the FBI and Boston police investigate Monday’s terrorist bombings at the Boston Marathon.

Five SunGard customers with offices on Boylston Street, where the bombings occurred, have declared disasters and are implementing plans for offsite operations, according to SunGard. A number of customers have moved staff to SunGard’s business continuity center in Marlborough, Mass., the company said.

One company that said it had employees working off-site in Marlborough was MFS Investment Management, which was among a number of investment firms in the Boylston Street area that had employees either working from home or from business recovery facilities.

On Tuesday a 12-block area of Boston’s Back Bay section was closed, as authorities combed the crime scene for evidence and clues to the identity of the bomber. Two explosions near the finish line of the marathon killed three people and injured 176 others. Copley Square was closed from Massachusetts Avenue to Clarendon and between Huntington and Newbury.

Boston police said the Copley Square area was “the most complex crime scene in the history of the department.” Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis told Boston.com that police hoped to reduce the size of the crime scene, but that he expected that much of the area would be closed off for “for another two days.”

Google announced a couple of new Chrome for Business features including Legacy Browser Support and cloud-based management of Chrome for Google Apps for Business and Education customers.

With Legacy Browser Support, businesses that have custom web apps that were built for older browsers will be able to use them with Chrome.

“When companies use browsers that are two or more versions old, employees and developers are unable to benefit from the incredible web innovations of the past four, or even ten years,” writes Chrome for Business & Education Senior Product Manager Cyrus Mistry. “Deploying a modern browser can help IT bolster security, reduce support costs, and improve browser speed and usability for employees.”

“With Legacy Browser Support, employees on Chrome are automatically switched to a legacy browser when they begin using an older app,” he explains. “IT managers simply define which sites should launch from Chrome into an alternate browser, and then set this Chrome policy for all employees. And while Chrome Frame helps developers build apps for older browsers, Legacy Browser Support lets IT admins of organizations embrace the modern web.”

With the cloud-based management feature, employees will be able to access default apps, custom themes, and curated app web stores when they sign into Chrome with their work account, whether they’re on their work computer or their personal computer.

Admins can customize over a hundred Chrome policies and preferences for employees.

An outage in a key reservations system has grounded all flights at American Airlines this afternoon, as the airline instituted a system-wide ground delay until 7 p.m. Eastern time. The technology problems, which left passengers and gate agents unable to manage bookings or print boarding passes, caused backups at airports in many areas of the country.

“American’s network system is experiencing intermittent outages,” the airline said. “At this time, we are holding all flights on the ground until later this afternoon, when we will provide another update. We are working to resolve this issue as quickly as we can, and we apologize to our customers for this inconvenience … We’re currently unable to modify today’s reservations. However, when able, we’ll offer refunds or update travel at no charge.

“The issue is with our ability to access our reservation system,” American said on Twitter, correcting an earlier tweet that attributed the downtime to problems with the Sabre reservations network. Sabre, which also serves other airlines, said “All Sabre systems are up and running; no issues here.”

UPDATE: As of 4:30 p.m. Eastern, American said its systems outage was resolved, but impacts on operations would continue to be felt. “Our systems have been fully restored, however we expect continued flight delays and cancellations throughout the remainder of the day.” In a statement on its Facebook page, the airline offered several options for travelers with flights today.

The airline added an unusual comment, apparently to address speculation: “It is important to note we see no evidence that today’s technical outage is related to the tragic events in Boston.”

The outage was causing significant delays at Dallas-Forth Worth airport, a major hub for American. “At DFW, there are some aircraft on the ramps awaiting departure, as well as arrivals flights awaiting gate space,” airport spokesperson Sarah McDaniel told the Dallas News. “Aircraft have also returned to the gate and deplaned passengers.”

The outage is the latest in a series of incidents in which problems with airline reservations systems have snarled air traffic and inconvenienced passengers. Here’s a recap:

• United Continental had significant systems outages last August and again in November, when the problems were attributed to integration problems from the merger between United and Continental.
• Last October customers of Alaska Airlines were stranded for hours when a cable cut on a fiber optic line severed the airlines’ connection to Sabre,preventing customers from checking in for flights and is causing delays systemwide.
• Last July the “Leap Second Bug” caused computer problems with the Amadeus airline reservation system, triggering long lines and traveler delays at airports across Australia. More than 400 Qantas flights around Australia were delayed by at least two hours as staff switched to manual check-ins. The outage at Amadeus, one of the world’s major reservation systems, lasted about an hour but had a longer impact on air travelers and airline staff.

There’s no need for Microsoft to build its own Windows Phone 8 devices because partners are already offering a great hardware experience. That’s according to Terry Myerson, who leads Microsoft’s Windows Phone division, and who spoke at the D: Dive into Mobile conference on Tuesday. Myerson specifically gave Nokia and HTC a shout-out as two of the hardware partners that provide compelling Windows Phone 8 handsets.

The smartphone situation is the complete opposite of the PC and tablet markets where Microsoft surprised many with the Surface RT and Surface Pro computers it announced last June. These machines compete directly against Microsoft’s long-time licensing partners such as Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Samsung, to name a few. It also may be why some of these companies are trying to break away from from Windows. HP introduced an inexpensive Android tablet in February while Lenovo now offers a Google Chromebook for the education market, for example.

Myerson’s comments don’t surprise me, even though we’ve heard rumors of a Surface phone for months. I don’t see what Microsoft can offer from a hardware perspective that its Windows Phone 8 partners aren’t already offering.

In particular, Nokia is building a wide range of superb hardware for the mobile platform; the direct result of a huge partnership with Microsoft it began in February of 2011. The flagship Nokia handsets meet nearly all, if not all, of Microsoft’s current Windows Phone 8 hardware requirements. There’s simply no reason for Microsoft to build a Surface phone at this point; it may make sense in the future if the company plans a vertical product design strategy.

Because of that, Myerson’s comments raise a different question in my mind: If the available Windows Phone 8 hardware is already good enough to keep Microsoft from designing its own, is the software simply not resonating with enough people at this point? The operating system is intuitive and fresh, but outside of Microsoft’s own horn-tooting, very little independent data shows that Windows Phone 8 is a raging success.

As Microsoft likes to say, however, its phone effort is a marathon, not a sprint. Perhaps later in the race the company will design and sell its own phone hardware. For now, there’s no need to wait for a Surface phone.

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Google announced a couple of updates to its mobile search results today. One is for expandable site links like these:

“When you’re searching for information on the go, speed matters,” write software engineers Hiroshi Mizuno and Alex Fischer on Google’s Inside Search blog. “If you want to check out Rotten Tomatoes for a new movie to go see with your friends, you might not want to navigate through the Rotten Tomatoes homepage to find the list of top movies while your friends are anxiously waiting. Now, there’s a faster way to get to the Rotten Tomatoes page with just the info you need most — just look for a new quick link for “In Theaters” underneath the main Rotten Tomatoes link when you search on your mobile phone. You’ll see these expandable sitelinks appear for many sites to help you get to a specific section quickly.”

The other new feature is the addition of “quick view” badges next to some results.

“Say you’re new to poker or need a quick refresh on hands — just search for ‘poker hands’, and you can now click the blue badge and see a quick view of the Wikipedia page listing out the poker hands immediately,” the engineers say.

This is considered an experimental feature, and currently just works with Wikipedia results, but Google says it will expand this in time.

Digital marketing agency BlueGlass has apparently happened upon some troublesome times.

Patrick Price, managing director of BlueGlass EMEA, tweeted out this YouTube video addressing the situation:

Follow @Idealizer

Patrick C. Price
@Idealizer

#BlueGlass Update 1: This is where we stand right now. Please be patient and have some trust. http://t.co/1i66ck0AzV We can make this work!

 Reply  ·  Retweet  ·  Favorite
23 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

“I know all of you have been hearing rumors about BlueGlass collapsing, folding, winding up, etc., the conference not taking place, or whatever,” says Price. “As of right now, the situation is as follows: BlueGlass USA is low on cash, and has a high amount of outstanding debt – the exact amount in either case I cannot disclose because I’m not employed by the company, and we are desperately seeking for a solution to the current problem.”

He continues, “Kevin Gibbons, the managing director of BlueGlass UK, and I, have stepped up towards all the current stock owners of BlueGlass USA, and have provided them with an offer to take over their stocks, and to restructure BlueGlass USA in order to fulfill as much as possible of clients’ expectations and demands, trying to find new solutions for each and every one of the employees, and ensuring the continuance of the BlueGlass X conference.”

“As of right now, we do not have any answers of the current BlueGlass stock owners yet,” says Price. “We are confident that we are very close to a solution, and that BlueGlass USA will continue in either form or another. So will the conference, and any ongoing client project work is subject to further negotiation, and approval of stock owners, and finding new solutions.”

BlueGlass was formed back in 2010, when a group of big names in the online marketing world joined forces to form a “new agency concept that combines proven online marketing strategies and results with a suite of proprietary technologies.”

Some of those names have quietly left the company in recent months, perhaps a hint at things to come.

Hat tip to ShoeMoney, who shares a Facebook post from Benjamin Cook, who says the company lost its CMO and CEO last week.

Now here’s a head-scratcher for your coffee break. Today, Google released a new tool that allows businesses to make Chrome their default while launching legacy browsers (e.g., Internet Explorer) for apps that need them. Strange thing: Chrome is outdated every 12 weeks.

As a marketing ploy to move IT organizations that have applications demanding some version of IE, Google exacts brilliance. But the Legacy Browser Support add-on defies one of the major reasons many businesses prefer Internet Explorer: Stable releases for long periods.

In June 2011, Google came out all high and mighty with a startling lifecycle change, starting August 1 that year: Support for the two current browser versions only. Given that new stable Chrome builds arrive about every six weeks, the change was unprecedented, particularly for businesses used to adopting one Internet Explorer version for years.

“Why does Microsoft have such incredibly long support cycles?” my former colleague (but still one helluva guy) Larry Seltzer asked two years ago. “Because enterprises demand them. They want stability and predictability so that they can plan. It’s the exact opposite of the strategy chosen by Google”.

Cyrus Mistry, Google senior product manager, explains the loft-sided benefits: “When companies use browsers that are two or more versions old, employees and developers are unable to benefit from the incredible web innovations of the past four, or even ten years. Deploying a modern browser can help IT bolster security, reduce support costs, and improve browser speed and usability for employees”.

Right, but Chrome 24, which released in January, already is outdated. Meanwhile, the oldest-supported IE version released in 2009. Perhaps that’s a circumstance lost on Google, which sees opportunity getting these businesses on Chrome now while providing them lifeline to IE-dependent apps. Well, they best be running Google’s browser now, since current version 26 could be outdated by the time they test and deploy it.

Regarding the benefits, “with Legacy Browser Support, employees on Chrome are automatically switched to a legacy browser when they begin using an older app”, Mistry explains. “IT managers simply define which sites should launch from Chrome into an alternate browser, and then set this Chrome policy for all employees. And while Chrome Frame helps developers build apps for older browsers, Legacy Browser Support lets IT admins of organizations embrace the modern web”.

Well that does seem simple enough.

Besides the new legacy-browser-app-supporting extension, Google also released a tool to help business and educational users better define workspaces. One of the contextual cloud computing era‘s big benefits is access to personal or professional data and content anytime, anywhere and on anything. But the practice also encourages people to commingle behavior, data user experience. Google has a solution. Mistry explains:

We’re also introducing cloud-based management of Chrome for Google Apps for Business and Education customers. Now, whether employees are working from the company’s desktop or their personal laptop, they will be able to access default applications, custom themes, or a curated app web store when they sign-in to Chrome with their work account. With cloud-based management, IT administrators can customize more than 100 Chrome policies and preferences for their employees from the Google Admin panel.

Both new IT tools are contextual, just in different ways. Back to legacy browser support, perhaps Google defines up-to-date, presuming Chrome always is, differently than I do or many IT organizations. Your definition?

Continue reading…

China has been experimenting with how to get its population to adopt electric vehicles in a way that it only could: from the top down, using cities as test-beds. But the programs, launched back in 2009 with 10 cities, and extended in 2011 to 25 cities, was completed in 2012 and has fallen short. For example, Chinese electric car maker BYD sold only 1,700 electric cars and 700 electric buses in 2012 to a country that has over a billion people.

An article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review laid out one of the most detailed assessments I’ve seen to date on how China’s electric car programs have been working, and why they have stumbled. Mind you, it’s still early days for the Chinese electric car industry, and one thing is certain: China is the largest car market in the world, and it is making one of the most aggressive bets of any country on electric car development. In the long term, a robust electric car industry and domestic market will likely emerge.

BYD’s electric minivan

China’s method of using its cities to test out local programs, which will later inform a national initiative, is one that has been used for decades. The country has tested out local economic innovation zones in this way and the magazine article calls China’s cities its “macro-laboratories.” The idea is that each region can have different system attributes, which can expose things that work and things that don’t work.

For example, the Beijing government used preferential policies like reducing car taxes, combined with a focus on industrial collaborations like a joint venture with Foton Motors, which is a union between BAIC and Daimler. The city of Shanghai adapted a rental EV model based on one from Bremen, Germany, while the local Hangzhou government also created a rental system; but one where people can rent the car and the battery separately. Shenzen pushed a more commercial approach to selling EVs, and created a financing leasing program with Potevio New Energy and China Southern Power Grid. Meanwhile, the city of Chongqing piloted fast charging stations.

At the end of all the pilots, Stanford Social Innovation Review pointed out that all of the cities fell short of their targets by thousands of cars. Not a single city hit its goals. While the local programs generated local enthusiasm and tested out a large amount of models, they focused too locally.

One problem was that the local governments and city leaders ended up over inflating the progress of the programs, because success could lead to more funds from the national government for the local regions. Competition between local programs also led to “local protectionism,” as the article calls it, meaning local regions would use their own standards that weren’t interoperable with other local ones. From the article:

[T]oo much local competition complicates rather than facilitates the development of the national formula. Without strong guidelines from the central government, the city pilots lose sight of overarching goals and produce specialized local standards that are not widely applicable.

The national Chinese government will clearly now have to find a way to use what it has learned to inform a national strategy. The goals for China’s electric car adoption were set in the summer of 2012 to 500,000 electric cars (all-electric and hybrid) by 2015, and 5 million by 2020.

Those goals might seem small, but given the progress so far they could end up being pretty ambitious.

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