Ep 73: From Ai Wei Wei to Building Generation T (Tatler) | Lee Williamson (Regional Editorial Editor, Generation T, Tatler Asia Group)

Lee Williamson is the Regional Editorial Director of Generation T, Tatler Asia Group and currently oversees three of Tatler’s flagship brands: Gen.T, Front & Female and Asia’s Most Influential. He was previously the Editor at Time Out Beijing and Editor-in-Chief at That’s China and was selected as a WAN-IFRA Young Media Leaders Fellow 2020.

If you’ve ever wanted to know what it’s like to work as a foreign journalist in China, dealing with state censorship, producing “controversial” editorials and also producing media products like the Generation T list, then this is the episode for you!

Highlights:

• 6:48 Moving to China
• 8:58 Working as a journalist at That’s China 
• 11:33 “You’ll Never Be Chinese”
• 15:19 Censorship in China
• 17:26 Relaunching 
• 18:21 Being Editor at Time Out Beijing
• 21:12 Publishing Ai Wei Wei’s first interview following his detainment in China
• 23:14 Working at Tatler
• 25:05 Why Gen.T?
• 26:21 Defining success, influence and power
• 27:17 What’s the point of another “list”?
• 29:42 Building the Gen.T community
• 34:48 Gaining trust
• 35:52 Getting people to share what they really want even after they say “I don’t really need anything”
• 39:05 Seeing Gen.T’s brand value increase
• 43:11 Deciding who gets on Gen.T
• 45:08 Tribes
• 47:21 Safeguards
• 48:57 Trends among Gen.T honourees 
• 50:22 What’s in it for Gen.T?
• 51:09 The Crazy Smart Asia podcast 
• 56:21 Planning for the future of Gen.T

📍Show notes: www.sothisismywhy.com/73     

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