Longest Day

Yesterday finished up with meetings with Avaya where we got a lesson in the perceptions of quality by Japanese consumers and a tour at NTT Docomo where we were enlightened about their perception of the future of mobile communications.  Both were good visits and just served to reinforce how different in many ways the Japanese consumer is, and yet how similar.

We left there and headed to electric city.  While Paul tells me that it was once the city of electric components from which anything electronic could be assembled, it has turned into a place to buy anime, play in an arcade, or buy a computer.  We did find a small market where you could buy any component you wanted to, but that was the minority of electric city, not the majority.

Also in electric city are the maid girls.  There were dozens of girls dressed in maid outfits soliciting passer-buys.  Since Paul and I were alone, we have no idea what they were soliciting us for, but it involved paying them money for something, so we passed.  While walking around this part of the city, I  did get my first Mos Burger.  I am still not entirely clear what all was on the burger, but suffice it to say it was delicious.  The big differentiator for Mos Burger seems to be that they make everything fresh as you order it; even the fries.  Thats about it for yesterday.

Today was 3 business visits that took up almost the whole day.  We started with a very interesting lecture by Suzuki san about some of the strengths and weaknesses of the Japanese people as it comes to confronting the challenges in the coming decades for Japan.  Following that, we ate lunch standing up before going to the American Chamber of Commerce - Japan.  The talk from the president elect of the chamber (Mike) was insightful and dealt with many of the issues facing companies looking to do business in Japan and America.  Finally, we had an interview with two, relatively new employees at Itochu (one of the big 5 trading firms).  While they gave us a very interesting briefing on the company, the real insights came in the form of answers about questions on how they got their jobs and how they worked.

Suffice it to say, working in a traditional Japanese company is certainly different from my job and the job of most American companies.  We finished our night in Shibuya which is the young persons district in Tokyo.  We saw people dressed in all different fashions.  Paul, Keiko and I headed to a Japanese version of Korean BBQ while the students walked around and scouted out the scene.  Following dinner, we headed back to the hotel for a couple of hours of sleep before heading to the Tuna auction tomorrow morning at 4:30am.  As such, I have to get some sleep.