910 karma · joined September 21, 2009
> In Japan, the seller is on the hook for up to an year for problems that weren't discovered at the point of sale.
Actually, it's 5 years in Japan now. My contractor just had to do a complete re-wallpapering of my house because the paper suddenly split.
For me to get to where my family lives (one layover), it takes me:
1 Hour drive to airport
2 Hours because it's an international flight
8 Hour Flight
2 Hours Immigration / Baggage
1 Hour Re-checkin
3-5 Hour Layover
30 Minute Commuter Flight
30 Minutes for baggage
30 Minutes drive home
So for my entire flight, the flying (even on a 8 hour flight) is less than half of my total time. By lowering the amount of time between connections, or lessening the amount of connections that need to be made, you can get greater gains than by flying faster planes.
Cheaper planes and cheaper flights could actually make overall flying time SHORTER, because there would be more planes in the sky, and less time between fights.
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Long rambling story:
When I first rode the bullet train back in college, I thought it would be like riding an airplane, at least from a management perspective. My friends and I bought the ticket a week in advance, made sure we were packed, and got to the station a good hour in advance of my train leaving.
It was only then that I realized that the security for getting on a bullet train is "show me your ticket" and that if you miss your train, you can just sit in the non-reserved seating on the next available train that will be along in under 5 minutes. (Back then it was more like 10, but still)
While you can't really compare trains and planes (and automobiles) in these situations, it still makes me think that the solution to faster travel is not faster planes, but better infrastructure and administration for travel.
And like you say, that's why it's important to have some of those big names under your belt. It's one of the best parts of my sales pitch to Japanese companies where I can say "Oh yes, I've done work with Toyota on improving their processes."
(Also, when I was looking at Priuses, I told the salesguy that I made the app he was showing to me, but it didn't get me a discount on the car)
Because of our aging population, in the next 15 years, 1/6th of our population will die. While the strain on the pension system will be lifted, I'm left to wonder if the seniority system has gotten to the point where there will be no changing of the guards -- and the future generations are left in charge of something that they have no idea how to maintain.
There's a saying in Japanese that companies last for 3 Generations:
1) The 1st Generation Innovates & Creates
2) The 2nd Generation only knows how to Maintain
3) The 3rd Generation only knows how to Decline
There are exceptions of course, but as a generality, I have found it to be mainly true.
Probably the quote from the article that hit home the hardest for me was this one:
> Many people told me that, in Japan, failures are punished. They also told me that, if you start and fail, you will be personally bankrupt.
This is something I've been told many, many times throughout my professional career in Japan. And it's obviously not true -- harder than in the US, for sure -- but definitely not impossible. I see new companies springing up all the time in Japan, and not just what we would think of as startups, but also Entrepreneurial ventures in industries such as manufacturing, finance and trade.
Equally refreshing is this view of the old and new Japan coming from a Japanese person. I hear stuff about the new Japanese culture all the time from ExPats in the startup community, but normally this new vs old is the elephant in the room when the Japanese talk about the future of Japanese business (at least in my experience).
I still remember when SMAP went to GREE's headquarters and did an interview with Tanaka a few years ago -- "How can you be head of a huge company, you're younger than me!"
PS - Other favorite quote from a show about up and coming CEOs in Japan: "How can people be making that much money on the INTERNET?!?!"
This app seems nice, but it a) only works in chrome and b) is free, so I wonder how long it will stay around, or if they're going to start selling my eyeballs for compensation.
The font that they chose for the area names is also incredibly wide, which works well for something like "Brooklyn" but not for a name as long as "KakamigaharaHonmachi," which is pretty standard for a Japanese town.
Everyone I've talked to in Japan who has upgraded regrets it.
I still can't believe Brennan's only charging $39 (with promo code) for it.
As I mentioned above, our internet speeds are crazy fast. I downloaded the whole thing in about 3 seconds on my home internet, 10 on my 3g ipad.
The only issue with the ipad was that you couldn't flick and have it just scroll down.
What I have learned: * Cheddar is out for Mac * Cheddar is opensource for iOS * Sam is the creator of Cheddar * Archiving is not supported
What I have no learned: * What Cheddar is * Why I should care
While I don't think that webkit will stagnate the way ie did, it's really amusing to see the webdev community repeating the exact same arguments supporting webkit-only sites that we were about ie5-only sites 12 years ago.
Also, the next version is supposed to redo the ORM to return actual models.
However, as far as giving information about the product, I don't think it was too bad. Features from the video:
* Cover is a keyboard on the back * Cover is removable, and comes in many colors * Kickstand on the back * A little thicker than a USB plug
I used to be on Mixi, and I and most people I know have pretty much stopped using it. When they started tying in their services to other APIs like Twitter, etc, I think is when they really jumped the shark.
(Also, Mixi is not really a Facebook clone, per say, as they both launched in the same month. I would say they were just another SNS that was more geared towards the Japanese market)
- PHP (CakePHP a plus)
- General Web Dev (HTML, CSS, JS)
- Ability to think about how to design micro apps or systems based on non-technical requirements
(Example: We make 100s of landing pages, we need some way to organize and reuse them)
Contact me on twitter @harisenbon79
When I was applying for my house loan, the exactitude of the forms I had to fill out was staggering, and each needed to be hand-written, in a specific format, with my personal seal that is registered with the city office. Any mistakes means I had to rewrite the form.
My invoices to clients, on the other hand, are generally printed and sent with the seal on them already. However, all of my clients do require printed invoices to be mailed to them.
While I have your ear, I have a question about your comments regarding getting feedback:
You mention that you ask for feedback in your welcome mail as well as on Twitter and FB, which are both in English. Do you find that a large number of your users are open to the idea of using the English versions of your FB & Twitter accounts? If so, do you find that this is a product of being in the Tokyo area?
I used to sell security software and many of our competitors were using solutions developed abroad that in many cases were not translated, or translated poorly. In our experience even when the competition was leagues better than our solution, we won out contracts because of full-Japanese support, and the image of quality that comes from that. This may be a result of being in the Nagoya area, but I was curious about your experiences with "Japanese Only!" customers / clients.
Also, cheers on a great product, and that amazing hockey-stick of growth.
"Japan has a culture based around personal networks and connections. Japanese consumers look for consensus and poll their friends in making a buying decision."
When door to door salesmen or telemarketers try to sell me things in Japan, they always start off with "Everyone in your area is doing XX" or "You're the only one in your area that isn't on XX yet."(1) It ticks me off to no end, but my wife (Japanese) actually starts reconsidering sales propositions when she hears that everyone else around her is doing the same thing.
As an American, I grew up with the phrase "If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you?" instilled in me. Talking with my Japanese friends, they seem to find that saying very odd -- if everyone else is jumping off the bridge, there must be some merit to it, they try to reason.
(1) A network provider tried to convince me that I was the only house in the neighborhood who was not yet on the optical network. My neighbors are pretty much all over the age of 60, and many of them probably do not own a computer more powerful than a cellphone.
Thanks for posting it though -- I think it was much more informative than our first podcast, as we're slowing getting the hang of them. Amy Hoy was a great guest, and we were really glad to have her on the show.
I always have major problems with pretty quotes breaking when copying from GoogleDocs to Netbeans.
"That's how" becomes "That’s how"