Sunday, May 30, 2004
Its kind of hard to tell what is going on with Japan these days... I've been in Japan the past two weeks (thats why no updates... give me a break I was supposed to be on vacation!) and things have certainly changed since my first visit.
To put things in perspective, this is something like my 14th trip here. And while my first trip was filled with wonder (and severe culture shock), I've noticed some unsettling changes in my last couple of trips.
I'm not sure I can even point to one thing and say: thats what is messed up about Japan these days, but there are little things:
And my last positive... I'm writing this from an Internet Kiosk in Narita Airport (next to a Starbucks!). I've been surprised how slowly Internet Kiosks and Cafes have been to take off in a country where broadband Internet access is so expensive. We've talked about moving to Japan once our kids are a little older, and because my line of work doesn't really exist here, we'd talked about running an Internet cafe to help serve my joint love of technology and coffee (software development isn't a respected profession in Japan... it is considered somewhat 'otaku', somewhat akin to being the domain of teenagers who haven't yet settled on a "real job"... and is paid accordingly)
To put things in perspective, this is something like my 14th trip here. And while my first trip was filled with wonder (and severe culture shock), I've noticed some unsettling changes in my last couple of trips.
I'm not sure I can even point to one thing and say: thats what is messed up about Japan these days, but there are little things:
- You can stand at a pedestrian crossing for a very long time (maybe forever... I didn't wait to find out), and cars will not stop, even though I'm told they're supposed to. England may be a technology backwater but at least us Brits will stop at pedestrian crossings.
- The mobile phones are actually bigger than the ones in the US. A few years ago I was wowed by how tiny mobile phones were here. I'm guessing this one is cyclical, as it seems almost all the phones have 2+ megapixel cameras in them, and many have zoom lenses and a built-in flash, as well as large high density color displays. In fact you pretty much don't see young Japanese using regular cameras at all anymore. And like my last trip here, they're constantly text messaging each other.
- Starbucks are showing up all over the place. This is good and bad... I actually had trouble finding stores of my favorite Japanese coffee shop chain, Karafuneya, when visited Kyoto. I don't know if there really are less of them, but there are certainly a lot of Starbucks and Doutor coffee shops now. The wierd thing was I could only get decaff if I ordered certain things, and non-fat milk didn't seem to exist. Or perhaps I just need to learn the word for it.
- Almost half the Shinkansen (bullet trains) are now the Nozomi high-speed type, but the must-have Japan Rail Pass (a rail pass you buy up front for unlimited JR travel) doesn't work on the Nozomi. This is a real pain, as it means you may have to wait quite a while to catch the far less frequent Hikari (or worse, the stops-at-each-station Kodama). The irony is that I'm told that Nozomi now costs the same as the Hikari... so whats the deal with the Rail Pass?
- Lastly while on the subject of the trains, when sitting on the train I noticed a lot of rust this time out. I don't know if it just me noticing it now for the first time, or if 10 years of recession means not painting railings and the like as often as before. Hmm.
And my last positive... I'm writing this from an Internet Kiosk in Narita Airport (next to a Starbucks!). I've been surprised how slowly Internet Kiosks and Cafes have been to take off in a country where broadband Internet access is so expensive. We've talked about moving to Japan once our kids are a little older, and because my line of work doesn't really exist here, we'd talked about running an Internet cafe to help serve my joint love of technology and coffee (software development isn't a respected profession in Japan... it is considered somewhat 'otaku', somewhat akin to being the domain of teenagers who haven't yet settled on a "real job"... and is paid accordingly)
Monday, May 10, 2004
 | If you've ever wanted to see how iComic works, or better still, if you'd like to get involved in shaping the next version, head on over to SourceForge and dive in. You will find iComic at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/icomic/ The development is being led by Chris Nebel and Scott Tooker, both of whom are developers at Apple... so iComic is in the best possible hands! |
Sunday, May 02, 2004
Been going through the latest Harvard Business Review (April 2004).
The cover article is entitled "Coaching the Alpha Male", and is a fascinating read. Reading the first few paragraphs I could have sworn I was exactly the person they were describing... Alpha males grow up thinking they're the smartest people they know, and tending to rely on their instincts instead of listening to others.
Folks at Dell will find the article particularly interesting, as it turns out the authors are the ones that coached Michael and Kevin, and "fixed" them to the point where the company became less agressive internally, mostly because of 360 reviews that started at the top and percolated down through senior management. Its also what gave us the "Soul of Dell" initiative, which I'd looked at quite cynically, but now see through new eyes.
For my part, as I got more in to the article, I found that several of the traits described were ones that folks close to me had pointed out and helped me overcome. When I have an idea, I tend to put it out there and challenge others to find flaws in it. I'm ok with them finding flaws -- thats how things get better, right? But I'm told some people find my approach intimidating, which I would shrug off as "I'm British - thats how we are". Still, I think I've gotten a lot better at listening the past few years, so maybe there's hope for me yet.
You can read the full article here.
The cover article is entitled "Coaching the Alpha Male", and is a fascinating read. Reading the first few paragraphs I could have sworn I was exactly the person they were describing... Alpha males grow up thinking they're the smartest people they know, and tending to rely on their instincts instead of listening to others.
Folks at Dell will find the article particularly interesting, as it turns out the authors are the ones that coached Michael and Kevin, and "fixed" them to the point where the company became less agressive internally, mostly because of 360 reviews that started at the top and percolated down through senior management. Its also what gave us the "Soul of Dell" initiative, which I'd looked at quite cynically, but now see through new eyes.
For my part, as I got more in to the article, I found that several of the traits described were ones that folks close to me had pointed out and helped me overcome. When I have an idea, I tend to put it out there and challenge others to find flaws in it. I'm ok with them finding flaws -- thats how things get better, right? But I'm told some people find my approach intimidating, which I would shrug off as "I'm British - thats how we are". Still, I think I've gotten a lot better at listening the past few years, so maybe there's hope for me yet.
You can read the full article here.
# posted 5/02/2004 07:40:31 PM |
