Jay,
I know you asked Andrea, and forgive me butting in, but here is what I liked
about the book:
*It gave a clear and honest view of NTT DoCoMo's corporate culture
*It helps reconcile the two facets of i-mode that we are all familiar
with--the extremely closed and conservative, rather technology-focused, and
not particularly adept at consumer products (witness eggy) company that
spawned it, and i-mode itself, which is open, content-focused, and extremely
consumer-oriented. Matsunaga was pivotal (Takeshi Natsuno's self-promotion
aside) in articulating the latter vision.
*In the book, Matsunaga takes us through the entire process of coming up
with i-mode, which is quite useful in understanding the form that i-mode
eventually took.
*Matsunaga is quite an interesting person, and her story is interesting. She
has a freedom of imagination and action which probably are unique to her,
but which probably have a lot to do with her being a woman, and coming from
the private sector.
As an aside: I was in New York a few months ago, and was talking to a top
editor at Harper Collins Business, and mentioned this book. I told her I
thought it was a really interesting story, and that she should try to pick
it up. Apparently she thought not. I find it interesting how insular the US
book industry is that a hugely successful person such as Ms. Matsunaga
cannot get her book published there.
I don't know if Andrea has had the same experience, but I have been asked
approximately six times in the past five months to help someone get a book
published in the US. I have passed these requests on to people I know in
the publishing industry, some from leaders in their fields, and there just
doesn't seem to be an interest. Or, perhaps I should say there is just no
interest in translations of Japanese titles into English. Plenty of interest
in books about the mobile internet, and especially about i-mode. Speaking of
which, I believe that several members of this list have a title coming out
this month from Sams Publishing. I am not sure if you had planned to
announce that, but don't be shy! It has been on amazon.com for months.
Cheers,
Nik Frengle
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Received on Wed Sep 5 07:46:18 2001