That's My Son-In-Law Who's Doing That!

Three years ago this June, I posted "Hiring Relatives and the Chinese Business Model." It was a sort of good news/bad news look at the potentials and perils of working with relatives.

In America, nepotism has a bad reputation - it's something that many companies specifically forbid. For good reason, I think: too many nitwit brothers-in-law and incompetent cousins can ruin morale and wreck a company.

On the other hand, having relatives work in the family business works pretty well among people with a Chinese cultural background - and in my family.

My oldest daughter and I have cooperated on a few projects - successfully, I think - and now I'm doing a little work for my son-in-law. He's the Executive Producer of Oasis Productions: and is managing production of "Art of Serenity: A Journey of Faith." (anoasisproduction, YouTube (February 23, 2010), video 4:13.)

We touched base earlier today: work on the documentary is on schedule. It's coming out by the end of August, 2010. Barring something like a Haiti-level disaster here in central North America.

He also set me up with an email service that'll allow us to exchange decent-size files. As a sort of test of the system, he sent me photos of the new office and workroom of Oasis Productions. These are scaled-down copies:


Video editing - the computer's doing the work at this point. April, 2010.

I'll want to ask - but I suspect the lighting is a little contrived in this photo. The lighting isn't quite that dramatic.


Production / editing area, Oasis Productions. April, 2010.

That's my daughter, at the editing station. There'd been discussion of my doing at least some of that work: but she's got transferable skills - and she's on-site, so it's her job now.

Like I said, family businesses can work well or fail spectacularly. It depends on the family. I think we'll do okay.