I have to admit, I didn’t know much about Jack Ma or his company Alibaba until this week’s 60 minutes report.  However, after watching the story I was very impressed with Mr. Ma and his business prowess.  I also have to say I thought he did a great job with his messaging as well.

Doing an interview in your second (or perhaps third or forth) language is always difficult.  Most world political and business leaders typically “opt out” by using a translator.  Translators are a much safer route, as many times things get lost in translation and translators can assure that doesn’t happen.  But doing an interview for American television in English definitely has its advantages.

Take Mr. Ma for example.  The fact he does the interview in English, even with several grammatical errors, allows the audience to connect with him.  There’s no waiting for the translation or wondering if that is “really what he said”.  It also helps because the vocal part of Mr. Ma’s message can be interpreted by the viewer.  If he would have chosen to use a translator, many of the stresses and accent points would have been lost.

Although sometimes hard to understand, I applaud Mr. Ma for “going it alone” while at the same time enhancing his credibility by connecting with the audience directly, instead of through a third party.