ROBOTS DREAMS - Blogger
Tuesday, March 26, 2002
Don't Hide Your Light Under a Bushel!
A friend of mine asked my opinion on one of his graphic designs recently. It was excellent, as good as anything you would find in one of the Tokyo art galleries. Here's what I wrote back to him-
My feeling is that your core ability is with the design, not
necessarily with t-shirts. Don't confuse the medium with the
message. I encourage you to try as many designs as possible, and
to try them in different formats. For example, print them out, or
have them printed, and show them whenever and wherever possible.
My nephew, who lives in a very small town in Texas, does similar
work. I encouraged him to have some of his designs printed out,
mounted, and displayed in one of the local coffee shops. Many
local businesses like restaurants and coffee shops are happy to
display designs like this if they fit the motif. It improves their
image, and promotes local artists. They also find that the
constant changing of the designs keeps their shop interesting and
attractive for their customers.
One small restaurant I know in Sunnyvale (California) always has
fresh flowers on the tables. I wondered how they could afford it,
so I asked the owner one day. It turns out that the flowers are
placed by the florist next door at no charge. What they discovered
is that the restaurant customers, after enjoying the flowers
during their meal, often stopped at the florist to buy flowers on
their way home.... The florist's sales went up by an average of
20% once they started displaying their flowers in the
restaurant....
Last fall I read an article about an Israel woman that started
selling her photographs on the street side along Omotesando
boulevard. She loved taking photos, and many of her friends
commented on how great they were. She liked to hang out in the
Omotesando area, so just for fun she printed out some of her
photos as postcards, and small prints. At first she would just sit
in a coffee shop there with her photos arranged on the table as if
she was sorting through them while she was enjoying her coffee.
People started to notice and express interest. Finally she started
to sell some, and the shop owner had to ask her to leave so she
changed to selling them on the street. People liked her work so
much that they started to bring friends and word of mouth spread
quickly. Then she was invited to have a show in a gallery there,
and now she has her own studio....
On the other hand, I have an old friend, an American that has
lived here for more than 25 years, and makes his living doing
contract jobs for gaishi that use Mac systems for business
applications.... You couldn't find a narrower, tougher niche to
try and survive it. Imagine trying to do part time work, for
foreign companies, in a foreign land, on a system that has less
than 7% market share, and is primarily graphics, design, and
publishing focused.... It's what American's would call
hardscrabble farming. You grow more rocks than crops. Yet my
friend has the most intense photographic sense that I have ever
run across in my life. When he lets his spirit free with a camera,
magic usually happens. His work is fantastic. I think that the
photographic/artistic side of his being is so strong that it
frightens him, so he hides it in a closet and seldom lets it see
the light of day. I feel blessed to be one of the few people that
he has shown his works to. I am also frustrated because his works
and his genius will be lost to the world unless he shares it.
The ability to share experiences, insights, and beauty between
people and across generations is the only thing that distinguishes
mankind from any other animal on the planet. The world needs more
beauty and light. People that can create, that have the vision,
talent, and passion, have an obligation to all of mankind to share
with the world.
Go for it!
Sunday, March 24, 2002
Thumbs Up!
A news story distributed by Reuters states, "The use of gadgets such as mobile phones and GameBoys has caused a physical mutation in young people's hands..." Very interesting if it were true. Alas, GameBoys are not causing genetic mutations - at least not yet. The author goes on to discuss the observations of Dr. Sadie Plant from Warwick University's Cybernetic Culture Research Unit.
The 'mutation' conclusion is based on the observation that youngsters are using their fingers in a way different from you and I. What the article, and perhaps Ms. Plant's research fail to address is how you and I came to use our fingers the way that we do. Personally, I learned to use my index finger as a result of having to deal with rotary dial telephones and typewriters. Asian cultures, in contrast, didn't have typewriters that would deal with their character sets. As cellphones and GameBoys have come into popular usage, the asian countries have been using their thumbs in new and different ways for years now.
I wonder if people a hundred years ago thought that their hands were being mutated by the new fangled typewriters and telephones. I know that getting my driver's licence at 18 really mutated my sense of speed and freedom.... !:')
Yahoo! News - Thumbs Are the New Fingers for GameBoy Youth
How You Ask The Question
Often the tone or quality of the answer you receive depends on how you ask the question. Some questions include presuppositions that the person being questioned almost automatically accepts without thinking about. In a restaurant, the waitress asks you what type of dressing you want on your salad, or how you want your steak cooked. The idea that they could have their salad with no dressing, or eat their steak raw isn't usually conciously considered.
In the article below, the Nikkei reporter asked an Amazon senior VP about the difference between 'real' and 'e-commerce' business. The concept of their being a difference between the two certainly exists in the reporter's mind, but I'm not sure that it was part of the mental image for the VP until the loaded question was presented.
E-Commerce Has Competitive Edge Over Real Business: Amazon.com Senior VP
Saturday, March 23, 2002
AI is not just a movie....
In junior high school I became obsessed with science fiction and devoured every SF story I could get my hands on. Since then I have continued to have a passion for space travel, time travel, aliens, and robots. Issac Asimov's robot stories were among my favorites. Now my SF day dreams are rapidly becoming a reality. A few days ago Sony unveiled the SDR-4X robot. Shades of A.I. the movie. It's amazing how much progress has been made in this field over the past three years.
Sony Unveils SDR-4X Robot, Plans Commercial Release at Year End
Friday, March 22, 2002
Amazon in Japan
It appears that Amazon learned a lesson that eBay didn't. eBay recently announced that they were closing operations in Japan - basically leaving the online auction field to the local Yahoo subsidiary. Amazon, on the other hand, seems to be surviving and thriving.
The most obvious difference is that eBay consistently tried to push the same style, look and feel, and business practices on their Japanese customers. Amazon has taken a different tack and is offering products that are tuned and selected to fit the local customer base. As a result their sales of non-book products are growing faster than their forecasts.
It's good to see a foreign company do it right here in Japan.
Amazon Japan Manager Says Big Sales Expected in 2002 for Items Other than Books
Thursday, March 21, 2002
Joining Forces
More and more Japanese companies are discussing merging operations. Earlier this week, Seiko and Citizen announced that they will start cooperating on purchased components. This morning Toshiba and Fujitsu released the news that they are in talks to form a tie between their semiconductor chip businesses.
Japan Today Japan News - News - Toshiba, Fujitsu discuss chip tie-up
Tuesday, March 19, 2002
Customer Satisfaction
The Japanese have a saying that translates roughly 'The customer is God.' Nikkei Business (the Japanese counterpart of Dow Jones, or the Wall Street Journal) recently did a customer satisfaction survey ranking companies based on the feedback from their customers.
The article linked to below is a summary of their results, and includes some interesting figures for the PC and automotive markets. It's really interesting to see that DELL achieved the highest customer satisfaction ranking in the PC sector. NEC, who used to own that sector almost exclusively, is now #10. There are quite a few foreign manufacturers in the top rankings. Unfortunately in the automotive sector foreign companies didn't do as well. BMW did make it to #3, while Mercedes-Benz was slotted into the #7 position. Leading the pack was Honda followed closely by Toyota.
Dell, Honda Named Best After-Sales Service Providers: Survey
Monday, March 18, 2002
Watson, come here! I need you!
We learn a particular metaphor - like using a phone for voice communication. We are successful at it. It becomes second nature for us. And eventually we can't think of it in any other way. Westerners, growing up with a 'keyboard' culture that dates back around a hundred years or more with it's roots in the typewriter, automatically try to use anything with a keys as if it was the same as their computer keyboard. Asian cultures, on the other hand, didn't have keyboards and word processors until very recently. They only gained wide spread acceptance within the last ten years.
So, when a Westerner tries to input their first few short mail messages on their new cellphone, they typically hold the phone in one hand while trying to punch the keys with the fingers of the opposite hand. What do the Japanese and Chinese do? Well, they hold the phone cupped in their hand, and use the side of their thumb to hit the keys. And, after a little practice, they manage to do it with machine gun like speed. Of course the younger generations of Americans have started to pick up the same type of approach.
Now, in Japan, and soon in the rest of the world, the hottest new thing is to have a cellphone with a digital camera built in. At first it sounds kind of strange. As a Westerner, my initial reaction was, 'why would I want something like that?' But then I realize that I had the same reaction to short mail text messages on my cellphone until I had the chance to actually experiement with them for a while. Now I send/recieve at least ten a day, sometimes much more.
So, what new and exciting worlds will digital camera equipped cellphones open up for us? I have no idea, but I'm sure it will be exciting, fun, and will definitely enhance communication between people. After all that's exactly what Alexander Graham Bell had in mind when he originally invented the telephone....
Mobile Phones with Cameras Become Increasingly Popular
Sunday, March 17, 2002
A Rose is a Rose, is a Rose...
When we read about the NYSE or the NASDAQ index going up or down, we have a sense of how Americans feel about the prospects for companies and the US economy in general. When we read about the Tokyo exchange, we also feel that the stock trends there reflect how the Japanese feel about the future for their companies and economy. It turns out, however, that on any given trading day, around 50% of the trading that goes on in the Tokyo exchange is driven by foreigners - mainly American and Europeans. The Japan stock indices tend to show more what the rest of the world thinks than what the Japanese public thinks.
Japan Today Japan News - News - Stocks to hold firm ahead of fiscal year end
Wednesday, March 13, 2002
Stereotyping
A few days ago one of our dogs ate a little too fast, and ended up having to spit some of the food out on the living room floor. As soon as I noticed it, I walked over and cleaned it up with some spray and paper towels. When I finished and returned to sit watching television next to my wife, who happens to be Japanese, she looked at me like I had just stepped out of a space ship.
I always thought that American men avoided any type of housekeeping. It turns out that Japanese men are much, much worse. In terms of domestic chores and sharing the household/family burdens, they spend less that one quarter of the time spent my their American counterparts.
Japan Today Japan News - News - Japanese men shirk housework, study shows
Channel Stuffing
Go by any Seven Eleven or bookstore here in Japan at almost any time of the day or night and you will see people standing, sometimes for hours, in front of the book and magazine racks reading to their hearts content. I have frequently wondered how the bookstores and publishers make any money. Of course a similar scene takes place in US bookstores, but the intensity here is up by at least one order of magnitude.
As it turns out, they haven't been making money. Sales are down (why buy when you can read every book in the store for free), and to make matters worse, the publishers have been stuffing the channel, loading up the bookstores with books that they know will never be sold. A recent report estimated that around 40% of the books printed and distributed are eventually returned to the publishers as unsaleable.
In the meantime, the sales numbers for translations of popular foreign books are up dramatically. 'Who Moved My Cheese', 'Harry Potter' books, and now 'Lord of the Rings' are runaway best sellers.
Japan Today Japan News - Features - Sales of books, magazines keep sliding
Tuesday, March 12, 2002
Through the Looking Glass, But Darkly-
America, and American culture is known and promoted outside the US primarily through it's movies and movie stars. Bruce Willis, Kevin Costner, and Arnold Schwarzenegger are just as popular in Tokyo as they are in Brooklyn. Of course sometimes things take on a comic twist. Here Costner is currently promoting canned coffee in a series of television commercials. Willis is featured in a really bizzare commerical for gasoline that features an oversized Cadillac style convertible, a fat Elvis clone, a falling paint bucket, and Bruce as some sort of X-men hero to the rescue.
Arnie, not to be out done, was just here promoting the Japanese release of his latest action flick - 'Collateral Damage". The picture of American behavior that he painted in order to interest crowds in his movie wasn't very pretty, though I am sure it served his purposes. How else are you going to draw people to the theater to see some one die from suffocation because a live snake is stuffed down his throat? One interesting story he told, factual or not, was that the day after 9-11 the US video shops had a run on movies about terriorist attacks.
It's also interesting to note that "Schwa-chan" has taken the Special Olympics under his wing as his own pet project to promote and foster. Kind of ironic that he makes his money on screen by doing the kind of damage that puts people in wheelchairs, then turns around and tries to help them out in real life....
Japan Today Japan News - Newsmakers - Terror attacks won't change Hollywood: Schwarzenegger
Inspiring Story-
It has always fascinated me that people discriminate so much based on disabilities. When I was working for Sun Microsystems in the early 1990's there was a big push to decrease this type of discrimination. The initial trigger for this effort was a minority employment report from a government agency. Sun Fed, the division within Sun Microsystems that sold to government agencies was concerned that they would lose major bids if Sun didn't improve hiring of minorities and disabled.
By the time that Sun actually rolled out the program the focus had changed. Some one had the insight to realize that while a person's skin color, heritage, or physical condition might be different, that their brains and intellectual assets were unimpared. What a waste of precious ability it would be to not utilize someone because of a disability or race. What started off as a mandated program, turned into a positive, leveraged opportunity to improve the company. Managers jumped on the program instead of resisting. Everyone won.
Interestingly enough one of the most successful trainers in the program was a blind Japanese fellow that had imigrated to the US and founded his own consulting business. While most people tend to freeze when they have to get up in front of a large group of people and give a speech, it was never a problem for him because he couldn't see their faces!
Now the same type of awareness is starting to surface in Japan. The article linked to below is about a new book "The Reason I Became A Company President at the Age of 15" (only in Japanese so far) by Kentaro Iemoto. Iemoto, confined to a wheelchair had the guts to overcome his disabilties, and his age, and succeeded in founding a successful internet server company. His efforts to take control of his life and destiny in the face of tremendous cultural stereotypes are definitely inspiring.
Japan Today Japan News - Book Kitchen - 15-year-old overcomes disability to become CEO
Monday, March 11, 2002
A Long Forgotten Classic
There are books that we read, more often in childhood than later in life, that change the course of our lives forever. 'Men of Mathematics' was one of those books for me. I ran across it in Junior High School, probably around the age of 14 or so. I was really fascinated by mathematics, but totally turned off by the way it was taught at school. I would be bored to tears in class during the day while the teacher explained for the umpteenth time how to do percentages, or the proper names for the numerator and denominator. Then, in the evening after dinner, I would go to my room and devour books on algebra, trig, and solid geometry. The puzzles and mental challenges that those texts presented me with were in a totally different world from the dry, dusty classroom I suffered through during the day.
One book, "Men of Mathematics" by E.T. Bell, originally published in the 1930's, opened my eyes to this fantastic mathematical world of wonders. Suddenly all the mechanical formulas and proofs we were supposed to memorize by rote came alive as Bell recounted the biographies and real experiences of the real life mathematicians that originally developed them to solve real world problems.
How did I happen to recall this wonderful book at this point in my life? Well, I happened to be reading the biography of John Nash, "A Beautiful Mind" and was amazed when his biographer mentioned that Nash's life course was set hard over on mathematics once he read Bell's book....
Amazon.com: Men of Mathematics
Truth in Advertising
A few weeks ago the news hit the press that one of the Snow companies had been relabeling Australian beef as Japanese beef to take advantage of compensation tied to the mad cow disease control program. Now it turns out that a Kochi based company has been packaging and selling Vietnamese salt as local natural, sun-dried product. What else lies beneath the surface, or under the label for that matter?
Japan Today Japan News - News - Kochi salt really from Vietnam -
Locking the Barn Door After....
Microsoft managed to convince some of the Xbox retailers here to restart Xbox sales by saying that they would unconditionally replace all hardware and damaged software. Hopefully it will help, but a lot of damage has already been done. One article here pointed out that Microsoft already knew about the problem since it was reported in the US where sales have been going on for about three months, but they decided to go ahead with the release here anyway.
Japan Today Japan News - News - Retailers resume Xbox sales - Japan's Leading International News Network two
Xbox is X'd out....
Everyone knows that the Japanese market is the most demanding in the world in terms of product quality. Even the tinest external marr is often cause for the Japanese consumer to question the quality of a product. In some ways I can understand it. When I get on an airplane and lower the tray only to find a coffee stain I have to wonder about the diligence of the crew that worked on the plane's engines.
Obviously Bill Gates and Microsoft haven't been paying attention. Two major electronics outlets here have suspended sales of the Xbox game consoles due to complaints about damage to game disks. Getting locked out of Sakuraya and LAOX here in Japan is almost the same as getting dumped by Circuit City and Walmart in the States. The Xbox already had some major hurdles to overcome. It's priced significantly above the competition, is late to the market, and it will be quite a while before it develops a game library comparable to Sony and Nintendo - if it survives long enough.
Two big retailers suspend sales of Microsoft Xbox
Sunday, March 10, 2002
Gambling at the Teller Window-
As if the Japanese banks weren't already in enough trouble, now it seems that they are going to start offering interest rates linked to the fortunes of a local baseball team.....
Bank to launch time deposits linked with Tigers victory
Saturday, March 9, 2002 at 10:00 JST AMAGASAKI
The Amagasaki Shinkin Bank said Friday it will launch a campaign March 18 that will link interest rates on its time deposits with the performance of the Hanshin Tigers baseball club. The bank based in Hyogo Prefecture said it will multiply interest rates for individuals who put their money in the deposits by 7.7 times ? a figure drawn from the number 77 on manager Senichi Hoshino's uniform ? if the club wins the Central League pennant.
(Kyodo News)
IM Goes To War
My sister lives in Texas, and I live just outside of Tokyo. In the rare times when our waking hours and time zones line up we can enjoy a chat using instant messaging (IM). We talk about the weather, Mom's medical status and attitude, how she is doing with her quilts, my dogs, .... In many ways it reminds me of twenty plus years ago when Citizens Band radio was all the rage.
Now it turns out that IM has turned into a real weapon for our military. Real time, truely 'instant' messages are enabling the Navy and other services to communicate at a level that no one ever imagined. Not only can they communicate, and coordinate with other US forces, but the Canadian, UK, Australian, and Germans are in the act as well.
Navy Floats IM with Allies
Thursday, March 07, 2002
Will Wonders Never Cease?
One of the staple foods of my childhood was Wonder Bread. The image of a slice of Wonder Bread, butter, gobs of peanut butter, and big spoonfuls of grape jelly still makes my mouth water like Pavlov's dogs to this day. For many of us in my generation, Wonder Bread was an institution, as faithful and trustworthy as our favorite school teacher or librarian.
But, sad to say, Wonder Bread has feet of clay. Yesterday the US Fair Trade Commission (FTC) issued a press release announcing proposed settlements in actions against Wonder Bread for making unsubstantiated claims. It seems that all those extra added suppliments like calcium, Niacin, and others that were supposed to help children's minds "work better" and help them remember things don't really live up to Wonder Bread's advertising hype.
I'm really heartbroken and depressed about this. If you can't trust Wonder Bread, who can you trust? I think I need to go comfort myself with a sandwich....
Wonder Bread Marketers Settle FTC Charges
Wednesday, March 06, 2002
Japan Technology Resources-
Here is a link to one of the best English language sources of what's going on in various technology and business fields in Japan. The JapanInc website has lots of articles and includes almost all of the back issues online. And, if you are interested in hearing about the latest gadgets as they hit the press here in Japan (long before they appear in any typical Western press) then you should consider subscribing to Gadget Watch, one of the JapanInc free newsletters. More interested in the technology and business trends, then I recommend JIN (Japan Inc Newsletter). Or, if you prefer your opinions raw and straight with no punches pulled, then Terrie's Take will be right up your alley.
J@pan Inc Newsletter Subscriptions
Coincidence? You decide-
If you watched a movie were the plot turns hinged on two men dying in identical accidents you might be skeptical. What if they were both involved in bicycle accidents? What if they took place within a half mile of each other over a two hour time span? What if the two men were brothers? What if they were 71 year old twins? Coincidence or the hand of fate? You decide-
Japan Today Japan News - News - Finnish twins killed in identical accidents - Japan's Leading International News Network apart
The weak get weaker, and the strong get stronger-
Most Japanese companies are downsizing and letting people over 45 go like there was no tomorrow. Toyota, on the other hand, is doing quite well and is positioned to set a new high water profitability mark for Japanese companies.
As a strategic investment Toyota shook hands with Recruit to form a new joint venture focused on personnel development for companies in the manufacturing industry. Needless to say the best and brightest will probably end up somewhere in the Toyota organization. Even those that aren't targeted to work directly for Toyota will end up with a strong level of loyalty and sense of obligation towards Toyota.
Japan Today Japan News - News - Toyota, Recruit to set up personnel development firm - Japan's Leading International News Network
Separating the men from the boys-
We won't know for sure for another month, but it is highly likely that Toyota Motor's pretax profit will be over one trillion yen setting a new record for Japanese companies. At a time when most Japanese companies are either in the doldrumbs or in zombie like depression, it's refreshing to see companies like Toyota doing so well.
Japan Today Japan News - News - Toyota likely to post Y1 tril profit - Japan's Leading International News Network between
Naturalization, Assimilation or Resistance-
You would expect that that naturalization figures for Japan would be significantly lower than the US. The cultures are completely different. That's not to say that one is 'right' and the other is 'wrong'. They just have a different approach to life and the challenges it presents.
I didn't, however, expect the figures to be so dramatically different. The Japanese Ministry of Justice released the most recent figures on Wednesday here in Tokyo. It turns out that a grand total of 15,291 people were naturalized in 2001. And the figure represents a decrease of 3.4% from last years figures.
Even more interesting is that the vast majority (10,295) of those naturalized were reported to be Korean. This doesn't represent an influx of Koreans that have moved to Japan because they want to become Japanese citizens. It actually represents people that have been living here, often since before WWII, and their children and grandchildren.
Japan Today Japan News - News - 15,291 become naturalized Japanese citizens in 2001 - Japan's Leading International News Network
Tuesday, March 05, 2002
Where have you been...?
In engineering, particularly electrical engineering, you learn a lot about feedback systems. If you want a circuit (or a business process) to work efficiently you need to take a sample from the output and feed it back to adjust the input. Simple enough, it would seem. After all mothers have used this approach to train and discipline their youngsters since time immemorial.
Yet, according to an improptu survey of business executives at the recent Computerworld Premier 100 conference more than 60% of the respondents reported that their companies rarely if ever go back to measure the return on investment (ROI) of a project six months after it's completed.
Learning and improvement of a knowledge base, both from a company and personal standpoint, only takes place if we take the trouble to consider what we did right and wrong. Otherwise it's just a ride like Space Mountain at Disneyland.
Premier 100: For ROI, you've got to have a plan | Computerworld News & Features Story
Say Cheese!
It was just a few years ago when I bought my first digital camera, a Casio that really struggled to come up with a picture worthy of more than just acting as a webpage thumbnail. Now digital camera commonplace. The Japan Camera Industry Association recently released a report showing that digital cameras with 3 million plus pixels out numbered those in the 2-3 million pixel range.
What does this mean? Well, I wouldn't run out to buy stock in Kodak, Fuji, or Agfa. On the other hand the inkjet printer manufacturers like HP, Epson, and Canon have a real bonanza on their hands. Lots and lots of printer ink and special paper will be consumed, while the use of silver and chemicals for traditional photo development and processing is falling off a cliff. All things considered the impact on the environment has got to be better. Almost all of the inkjet inks used in consumer applications are waterbased while the traditional photo process generates lots of chemicals and waste to be processed.
Industry experts are seeing the total number of photos ramp up pretty rapidly. But, since they are digital photos, the vast majority of them never actually get printed.
Even more interesting is the fact that the major winners in this game are not the traditional film and camera makers. Sony leads the pack far and away with their Cyber-shot series. On the printer side of the equation only Canon had some link to the traditional camera world before the digital camera tsunami hit.
3M-Pixel Digital Camera Production Surpasses 2M-Pixel Output in Jan., JCIA Says
Monday, March 04, 2002
New Cash Crop - Quota
As it turns out the US government has been subsidizing peanuts for the past few decades. Peanut 'farmers' who were lucky enough to get a government peanut 'quota' were guaranteed a price of $610/ton where as their not so fortunate neighbors without a quota had to sell their peanuts on the open market for much less. Last year this was around $150/ton. Apparently this dates back to the Depression, so we can't blame it on a certain past President that happened to grow peanuts for a living.
The interesting thing, at least for me, is the way that the farmers think about the quota. They talk about it almost like it was a real crop. It's pretty hard to spread quota butter on your bread, but that's the way they talk about it. Strangely enough some of the quota holders live in places you wouldn't expect. Not many peanuts are grown in New York City, yet 84 of the quota holders live there. It must be a little hard for government officials to take other countries to task for farm subsidies and trade barriers when things like peanut quotas are still in operation in the US.
Yahoo! News - Many Benefit From Peanut Buyout from
Sunday, March 03, 2002
Digtal Paper?
When I first read the article linked below I thought GREAT, where can I buy one...? The idea of being able to write on paper, then send it off by fax or e-mail without having to type or Graffiti it into my PC or Palm was just too neat to be ignored.
Then cooler heads (and a limited budget) prevailed. As the author of the piece (Erick Schonfeld - aka Future Boy) points out, no matter how trick a technology like this appears on the surface, it still has to satisfy a real world human need. I have a closet full of toys that I was really excited about, sometimes paid a premium to get my hands on, used for a couple of days to a couple of weeks, then set aside.
Business 2.0 - Web Article - Paper That Acts Digital
Restructuring Taken to an Extreme-
On the topic of layoffs and restructuring in Japanese companies:
- Yasutsugu Konishi, 45, secretary general of the Iki Communications labor union in the town of Ashibe, southwestern Nagasaki Prefecture, recalls his own experience of being dismissed from a company that disbanded, then reformed, set up offices in the same building, and began hiring new staff.
Japan Today Japan News - News - Forced dismissals prevalent among companies - Japan's Leading International News Network
Changing of the Guard?
For the past twenty years people have been talking about China opening up and becoming a real world competitor. Now it looks like it is finally going to happen. Last Friday in Tokyo Craig Barrett, Intel CEO, said that China will pass Japan within two years and become Intel's largest customer in Asia. Of course a significant percentage of that increase will go to systems built for consumption in the China market. What has to be causing the Tokyo folks to toss and turn in their sleep at night is the coming wave of Chinese exports. Chinese, Hong Kong, and Singapore headhunting firms have already been reported to be recruiting the cream of the senior talent laid off recently from Japan's top players. That brain and talent drain coupled with China's entry into the WTO, and Japan's economic problems is a real witches brew about to reach the boiling point.
CNET.com - News - Investor - News - Story
Saturday, March 02, 2002
Intrique-
Interesting to see that Walter Hewlett is pursuing discussions with Lew Platt to come back in as the CEO of HP should the HP/Compaq merger fail. At the same time the HP board is beratting Hewlett for acting behind their back. Of course if no one is asking who they have lined up to replace Carly should the merger fall through. This is better than watching Ally or wrestling on TV any day of the week!
FT.com | News and Analysis | World Article
Friday, March 01, 2002
800 Pound Gorilla-
Or a 363.6 kilogram gorilla... There's an old joke that asks where does an 800 pound gorilla sit. The usual answer is 'Anywhere he wants.' In some variations of the joke the gorilla has been converted into a canary or some other strange animal. It's hard to imagine what Sylvester the cat would do with a 800 pound Tweety Bird....
It didn't take long for Yahoo Japan to realize that it had suddenly become the 800 pound auction gorilla here in Japan. Less than 36 hours after it became public knowledge that eBay was abandoning the Japanese market, Yahoo announced new, improved (read that as 'more expensive') pricing for their auction customers here. I guess if you are almost a monopoly player you can do what you like. They must have been taking lessons from Bill Gates....
Japan Today Japan News - News - Yahoo to charge fees for Internet auction service - Japan's Leading International News Network
