Douglass Turner (no relation, AFAIK) writes, in part:
> What I found most facinating was how clueless, handwaving,
> and generalyy unfocused the rest of the panel sounded
> against Takeshi Natsuno's pragmatic, sensible, approach
> to providing mobile wireless services. It was almost as
> if he was talking about an entirely different technology
> then the rest of the (American) panel. I doubt things
> would be different of Europeans were present.
Something I've gotten from the whole experience of being
in Japan is an enhanced perception of a basic human
failing: that seeing is believing, and that NOT having seen
something is always to feel some doubt, a doubt that only
a fairly strong social consensus can offset.
Most people seldom quite get what they haven't either
seen for themselves or (more rarely) dreamed up on
their own. Japan is such a case in point. Trying to
convey Japan to people who haven't been here
awhile (or who haven't at least had some comparable
direct experiences as a source of reference points)
invariably takes me back to the same situation: I find
myself talking *at* a dazed listener whose imagination has
crashed under the complexity of trying to visualize a
situation with so many variables that are just different
enough to cause, in aggregate, real qualitative differences
in social outcomes, even though few of these variables,
taken by themselves, seem to offer that key "difference
that makes a difference." "But we have that, too," they
protest, and you say "Yes, but they have MORE of it here,
and it's amplified by having more of THAT, and much less
of this OTHER thing...." and their eyes just glaze over.
Of course, it works the other way, too; if anything, the
Japanese generally have it even worse. My favorite
example: the brilliant Navy admiral who planned the attack
on Pearl Harbor even though he was actually opposed
to any direct confrontation with the U.S. He knew,
from direct personal experience of the U.S., that it
was an industrial steamroller that, if attacked, would
inexorably flatten Japan. If they were going to listen
to anyone, it should have been to him. In the end, though,
he was forced to follow the orders of superiors who,
while they might have understood HIS calculations,
simply couldn't quite factor into their own anything
that they hadn't experienced for themselves.
Milton Friedman had it right: ideas don't change the
world, only crises can.
I don't mean to imply that iMode is some unassailable
wireless business model that will work anywhere, and
especially so since it'll catch the digital wireless
cognoscenti of the world with their pants down --
we'll have to see about that. I'm just saying that
there can be very intelligent people for whom iMode's
current Japan-anchored success is not directly
REAL enough to figure into any serious thinking
on their part, even though they have major
investments and/or reputation at stake. It's only
human.
So....make the most of it, I guess.
-m
leap@gol.com
[ Did you check the archives? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
Received on Mon Mar 12 19:15:42 2001