BUSINESS · LEADERSHIP · JAPAN · LIFE
Spencer Wolfe
AINEO Networks – Thoughts And Insights For Business Professionals
It sounds like Mr. Jobs has gone through some pretty serious health issues. We hope that he recovers soon.
From friends that know him, he seems to keep to himself. He has certainly been a market changing personality in business.
My gut feeling is we may lose him. I hope that I am wrong.
This is something I look forward to reading.
Check the Decker assessment for 2010 here.
We see many Korean and Japanese couples going to the US to birth their babies. It seems Hawaii is the favorite destination with many Japanese experienced. The motivation is to get their children US citizenship.
In Japan and Korea, you have to be born of Korean or Japanese parents to have the citizenship of that country. In the US it is called Birthright Citizenship. It looks like things might change. Check out the articles here.
Today, US time, Apple will be opening their App Store for Mac.
They've got it for the iPhone, iPads, and other iOS devices but this marks the first time you can buy apps for your OSX devices.
What are the implications? Are they trying to control the market? It seems they will certainly become the middleman. Let's see how it goes.
You can check out their store here.
Disney has done an excellent job of creating a fad. The Pirates of the Caribbean advert promoting there move demonstrates the marketing power they have. They turned a theme park ride into a multi-million dollar brand. Probably why we saw people wearing all sorts of clothing designed with skull and crossbones integrated in the material in 2010. A bit morbid...
This advert in the subway stairwell in Ginza promotes the new movie and their website and probably costs them about $3000 USD. It is promoting Pirates of The Caribbean 4- On Stranger Tides to be releases in March 2011.
It will be interesting to see how long this fad can hang on. Evidently someone is buying it.
It seems every 1 January the retailers have a zillion sales going on. This pic of H&M at ShinMisato's Lalaport was no exception. The difference was there were so many Brazilians in the store you though you were in San Paulo.
We had a wonderful year in
2010. We are very excited about 2011. Buckle up!
Recently we've all been inundated with information about Wikileaks, the website owned by Australian Julian Assange. Assange got confidential US government information and posted it on his website creating incredible diplomatic pain for the US government and other governments around the world.
He posted information on the US war in Iraq and now diplomatic wires between the US and various governments around the world world. Assange says he is promoting transparency and openness for governments by posting this information. Unfortunately, the US government employee who gave him the information was treated as a traitor (and rightfully so) and is now in prison.
So what are we all to think of Wikileaks and this individual Mr. Assange?
Well, a former US Attorney General leaked confidential information and went to jail for it. The incident was called Watergate. Mr. Charles Colson recently said that at the time he felt he was doing the right thing by leaking confidential information as he commented on the Wikileaks news. Colson commented,
" In 1973, I went to prison for leaking government documents - in that case, an FBI file on Daniel Ellsberg, the man who himself leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times."
He continued,
"Like today's leakers and those who have published the leak materials, I thought that my actions were justified by a higher, more important, purpose. The release of the Pentagon papers put lives at issue. So I thought I had to stop Ellsberg. Classical ethical dilemma. My actions in pursuit of a noble goal were wrong-and in the end hampered the government's ability to prosecute Ellsberg."
What are we to think of Wikileaks? The answer for this political trouble is probably the same answer you would give as a business professional.
With the internet today, it is important that we carefully consider what we do. What we do can endanger or even hurt others. Just because you have information does not mean that it needs to be published. There are probably many business people who would be tempted to publish a list of their customers that didn't pay their bills or ripped them off. Not a good idea. Once it is published, the damage as done.
What can we learn from Wikileaks? Sometimes it is better to leave things alone. One American is in prison for giving Assange the information he published.
As for openness and transparency, experts tend to agree that this breech of trust will likely cause more concern and less openness and more secrecy as governments move to better protect themselves. We shall all soon see.
Willcom, the lone remaining PHS provider in Japan is pulling out the stops. They are offering free phone calls to any domestic number for up to 10 minutes per call and 500 calls per month. See the campaign here.
With the introduction of the White plan from Softbank, and the advent of the smart phone (particularly the iPhone) Willcom has struggled to add subscribers. Early on, Willcom was strong with their Sharp Zero3 Smart phone but lost out to the speed of the 3G Networks of Softbank, NTT Docomo, and KDDI's AU mobile phone service to a limited extent. It will be interesting to see how this new campaign helps or hurts the mobile phone company that was at the brink of bankruptcy.
Willcom's service is probably the only service in Japan that will work in the event of an earthquake. This has been proven in the past were all standard cellular networks have gone down with these natural disasters. It relies on many more antennas than the standard cell which gives it superior voice quality and resilience in the event of a disaster.
