Here is the official website for the renewal official site for the GMBA at Doshisha Business School.
Here is the International Students Website for the Global MBA at Doshisha University.
November 04, 2009
November 03, 2009
Rainbow
From the window of our room for the Global MBA at Doshisha Business School, we could see a beautiful rainbow after raining. We enjoyed it for a while like for a coffee break.
September 09, 2009
New website for the Global MBA Students
I am creating a website of the Global MBA students at Doshisha Business School (DBS). This program is going to launch from this September and we have already had 21 International students from 15 different countries.
http://dbs-gmba.jimdo.com/
August 06, 2009
Presentation for a HEC student
I had a chance to give a presentation about "Internet Marketing" for the Internship student of HEC School of Management, Paris, France at Doshisha Business School. This program is held by KCCI (Kyoto Chamber of Commerce). After my presentation, we could discuss with him and other faculty member of DBS about differences of Internet marketing between two countries.
July 23, 2009
The exchange student program
The exchange student program for 2009 of our rotary club has been started. As I am a chairman of the International service at our club, I organized this program and many people involved it for two students who come from our sister club called LaHabra Rotary Club in California in the US. They arrived in 19th of July and are staying until 01st of August for two weeks program. Here is today's schedule. I believe they enjoyed our program so far.
Courtesy Call for Takarazuka City Mayor Ms. Tomoko Nakagawa
Visit temple and shrine called Kiyoshikojin in Takarazuka
Japanese traditional tea ceremony
Rotary Club Meeting
If you are interested in this program, please refer our club website as follows: Click here!
July 22, 2009
Business trip for Tokyo
I went to Tokyo to have lectures at the University of Tokyo last weekend. The lecture will be continue until June next year, so I have to visit Tokyo several times during this period. So far I am enjoying the lecture related with the legal guardian authorized by the family court. I have been working for the family court for about four years as a government bureaucracy. This course at the University of Tokyo is very useful for my part time job. I also enjoyed the campus such as the Sanshiro pond, Clock Tower called the Yasuda Lecture Hall and the other historical buildings.
June 14, 2009
New YouTube site for the Global MBA at Doshisha Business School
I have just created the video sharing site at YouTube as a new site for the Global MBA Program at Doshisha Business School. Please enjoy videos of faculty members from many countries.
Here is the new website at YouTube.
June 07, 2009
Press conference for the launch of the new Global MBA at Doshisha Business School
We had a press conference for the launch of the new Global MBA at Doshisha Business School (DBS). The conference started with a speech by the President of Doshisha , the message from the Dean of DBS, and an introduction of the head of the Global MBA. This course is going to start from September of this year and 23 students from 17 countries have been chosen to enter as the first students of this Global MBA course.Finally, we had many questions from the reporters of paper. Here is the one of the articles of the press conference this time. (Kyoto Shinbun on 6th June, 2009 in Japanese only)
May 25, 2009
My Global Kakushin Juku video with Doshisha song
I have just created my first video of the Global Kakushin Juku at Doshisha Business School. "Global Kakushin Juku" is a class of business education for Kyoto craftsmen and and craftswomen for the new leaders of Kyoto traditional industries at Doshisha Business School. Please have a look and feel free to give me some feedbacks.
May 23, 2009
My first video for Doshisha Business School
I have just created my first video for Doshisha Business School. Please have a look and feel free to give me some feedbacks.
April 22, 2009
ANA’s maintenance factory visit
I had a chance to visit the maintenance factory of ANA at Osaka Itami Airport with the Rotary club. We visited three factories, which maintain planes B767, A320, and B777 to see the maintenance carried out by the general mechanic, re-painting and the checking of all parts of the airplane. They say that it takes several months and the cost of maintenance is approximately 100,000,000 yen, excluding the cost of parts or replacement parts. As normally these factories are not opened to the public, we were so lucky to have an opportunity to inspect them and take photos.
April 15, 2009
Four international students from Asia
DBS welcomed eight new international students from spring 2009. Four international students talked together at the common room of the business school. The three of them come from Taiwan, Thailand and Mainland China. The other student has already studied for two years at this school. He was giving information about classes and student life at DBS for the new students. For new students, there are many things they have to do for their new school life. There is a new environment for them here in Kyoto, Japan and a completely new life style. Some help from students who are already studying here is very important and helpful for their new life at DBS.
April 09, 2009
Horse racing experience
I had a chance to go to the horse racing in Takarazuka city on a sunny Sunday. This is the third time to go there as one of the events of the Rotary Club. Usually, I am not interested in gambling including horse racing, but I like the special room here to spend the day. This room is located on the top floor of the building of the horse owners and the view from the room is very nice and the whole track of the races can be seen. We could see the goal and wide screen in front of our building. I bet a small amount of money and had the chance to win several times from twelve races. Betting was confusing because of there are many ways to bet such as betting on horses, on groups, for 2 or 3 horses in order, or regardless of order. I tried several ways of betting by asking someone who knew well enough it. But it was so difficult to get more money than the amount I had bet. Though I lost, I could enjoy the unusual event.
Welcome party with “Hanami”, Cherry blossom
At the river side of the Kamo River in Kyoto, a “Hanami Party” was held for the new students of DBS, 6th students by the DBSN (Doshisha Business School Network), which is the alumni organization. More than 40 students, family members, alumni and faculty members came together to enjoy cherry blossom with lunch and beer. It was so beautiful spring day in Kyoto just after finishing the cold weather in winter. By the nice atmosphere with beautiful flowers, water from river, gentle breeze and etc, new people could talk openly at the Japanese traditional ceremony in spring.
March 19, 2009
Video interview of a Global MBA faculty and a guest speaker
We could have video interview with Professor Zheng Wei Wei for Chinese language Class at Global MBA course. We also took the interview from Professor Kevin McCormick, Visiting Senior Research Fellow from University of Sussex (US) for Global MBA “Online Business Seminar” interviewed by Professor Philippe Byosiere, Doshisha Business School at the same time. Both videos should be very interesting for you even though they are not so long, and they are coming soon on the Global MBA website. Please refer to the “Our Faculty”, “MBA Video Messages” and “Online Business Seminar” page later.
March 14, 2009
Guests from the University of Hawaii
DBS (Doshisha Business School) had three guest students from Shidler College of Business at The University of Hawaii (MBA). The meeting was held at Doshisha Business School with guests from Hawaii and four DBS faculties, students and alumni for two hours. At first we each introduced ourselves, about our background and majors and discussed about the unique features of each of our master theses on the MBA. At lunch we had very good time talking about many things such as business, economics, politics and education from different perspectives in different countries of origin, and as MBA candidates we could talk freely with the two DBS faculty members. After lunch the guests had a tour of our facilities with some DBS students.
March 13, 2009
Guests from Thailand through GSE program
We had five members of GSE, which is the Rotary Foundation’s Group Study Exchange, in Takarazuka city in Japan. As a chairman of the International Service, I arranged a Takarazuka tour for them with other members. After we picked up our guests from their hotel at Sanda city and took a train to Takarazuka, we enjoyed a Japanese lunch at “Ganko Sushi, Takarazuka”.
Then we went on a backstage tour of Takarazuka Revue visiting the several departments such as the the costume department, stage design, electricity and tools department, and we saw a rehearsal. This atmosphere was tense because the next day was the opening day. They enjoyed this tour because the Takarazuka Revue is so beautiful and played by only women, who are selected from across Japan and who practice singing and dancing very much for plays. Then, they attended the club meeting to meet our club members and each member made speeches which I translated. They gave us very warm hearted and good speeches from bottom of their heart. Then we enjoyed a drinks party later at the same hotel. It was a long day for us but we could understand the differences between countries and cultures through this Rotary activity.
Here is some information about GSE, refer to the Rotary International website:
The Rotary Foundation’s Group Study Exchange (GSE) program is a unique cultural and vocational exchange opportunity for business people and professionals between the ages of 25 and 40 who are in the early stages of their careers. The program provides travel grants for teams to exchange visits in paired areas of different countries. For four to six weeks, team members experience the host country's culture and institutions, observe how their vocations are practiced abroad, develop personal and professional relationships, and exchange ideas.
February 24, 2009
A presentation at DBS Marketing Forum (No.15) in English
I gave a presentation at “DBS marketing Forum” on the 22nd of February at Doshisha Business School. As it was the first time that this forum had presentations in English, I was very happy to participate in this event. I was the second speaker after Mr. Andrew Till, Co-founder and Vice President of Japan Market Intelligence K.K. He introduced some new marketing methods using new technologies, such as CVG (Consumer Vision Goggle). I was very interested in his presentation.
After him, I talked about Internet Marketing, the theme of my talk was “Attractive website for the niche market using cutting edge technologies web2.0 “. This subject was quite similar to the presentation that I had done for the MBA of Xi’an JiaoTong University in China in November last year. That was about 40 minutes long including Q&A, but this time was much longer, around two hours for only my presentation. When I heard about that, I became nervous because it was the first time for me to give such a long presentation in English. Mainly, I talked about the case of the website of “Kakushin Juku” and its analytics. As I had plenty of time to speak, I introduced the website strategy of Global MBA and analysis as well, and also talked a little bit about my online shop at Rakuten shopping mall which is the largest online shopping mall in Japan.
Our online shop called “K-net” is now celebrating its 11th anniversary on this shopping mall as it been in 1998. Though the total number of shops in the Rakuten mall, called “Rakuten Ichiba” is now more than 25,000 shops, only 39 shops including “K-net” are the oldest shops on the Rakuten Ichiba. Fortunately, the sales of our shop are gradually expanding, but the competition between online shops is becoming more and more difficult.
Following that, I wanted to talk about the current situation of Internet marketing, looking at examples such as the website for craftsmen in Kyoto, those of the university and current online shopping, I had quite a few questions and much feedbacks from the audience and I really enjoyed discussion at this forum.
Seminar for Students from Chinese University in 2009
Around 80 students from universities across China visited Doshisha Business School (DBS). This is the forth time for students to visit from universities in China and we hope they had good time in our Business School getting to know about the education curriculum and the atmosphere of our university. In the morning, the Dean, Prof. Harukiyo Hasegawa of DBS provided the welcome speech, and the next speech, “Introduction to Kyoto, Doshisha University” was provided by Associate Prof. Ou Qian, Associate Dean for International Affairs, Doshisha University. After the introduction of Doshisha Business School (DBS), a trial MBA class, “Marketing Seminar”, was provided by Prof. Hiroshige Hayashi from DBS. To present the students' perspectives, “What one international student thinks about DBS” was introduced by Mr. Sheng Wang a foreign student at DBS. Finally, a “Lunch Party” was held for the visitors with Doshisha students who have experience visiting and learning at Fudan University.
February 05, 2009
Video interview of two faculties from foreign Universities 5
February 03, 2009
Setsubun: Bean-Throwing Festival
The following quote is taken from Wikipedia:
In Japan, Setsubun (節分) is the day before the beginning of each season. The name literally means "seasonal division", but usually the term refers to the spring Setsubun, properly called Risshun (立春) celebrated yearly on February 3 as part of the Spring Festival (春祭 haru matsuri?). In its association with the Lunar New Year, Spring Setsubun can be thought of (and was previously thought of) as a sort of New Year's Eve, and so was accompanied by a special ritual to cleanse away all the evil of the former year and drive away disease-bringing evil spirits for the year to come. This special ritual is called mamemaki (豆撒き, lit. bean scattering). Mamemaki is usually performed by the toshiotoko (年男) of the household (i.e. the male who was born on the corresponding animal year on the Chinese zodiac), or else the male head of the household. Roasted soybeans (called irimame 炒り豆) are thrown either out the door or at a member of the family wearing an Oni (demon or ogre) mask, while the throwers chant "Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!" (鬼は外! 福は内!). The literal meaning of the words is something like "Demons out! Luck in!" The beans are thought to symbolically purify the home by driving away the evil spirits that bring misfortune and bad health with them. Then, as part of bringing luck in, it is customary to eat soybeans, one for each year of one's life, and in some areas, one for each year of one's life, plus one more for bringing good luck for the year to come.
February 01, 2009
Giving a presentation to junior high school students
I was invited to the Sasayama Rotary Club, which is a rotary club located in the middle of Hyogo prefecture in Japan and in the same direct as the rotary club which I belong to now, to give a speech about my internet business. The audience were 1st and 2nd year local junior high school students who are 13 to 14 year-old boys and girls. This symposium was held by Sasayama Rotary club to invite professionals of 10 different occupations including a professional baseball player, hospital management, entertainment business worker from the Takarazuka Review, a designer, internet business worker, kindergarten manager, beauty salon manager, etc., for students to think about their future occupation. After the opening ceremony about 200 students and several professionals and staff were divided into 10 groups. I gave a lecture about online shopping and the web consulting business including website of university. About 20 students came to hear what I had to say and they answered my questions correctly. For instance, they gave me better answers about what is the difference between an online shop and a real shop than I expected, after I explained about the system of the online shopping business. I hope that this opportunity could be helpful for them to think about their future occupations.
January 31, 2009
January 26, 2009
Video interview of two faculties from foreign Universities 4
We could have about 10 minutes of video interviews with Professor Simon F Deakin from the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge and Associate Professor Andrew Staples from Kansai Gaidai University at the library on the 3rd floor of DBS. Professor Simon Deakin talked about Cooperate Governance for his next Global MBA class. He said he would mention some of the cases such as Enron from the US and Livedoor from Japan. Associate Professor Andrew Staples is going to teach a Global MBA class as well. Since he has been in Japan for about eight years, he knows about Japan and the Japanese well. Both videos should be very interesting for you even though they are short, and they are coming soon on the Global MBA website.
January 25, 2009
Seminar for Students from Fudan University in 2009 Winter
Around 60 students from the well-known university, Fudan University, Shanghai in China visited at Doshisha Business School (DBS). This is the second time for studens to visit from Fudan University and we hope they had good time in our Business School to know about the education curriculum and the atmosphere of our university.
In the morning, the Dean, Prof. Harukiyo Hasegawa of DBS provided the welcome speech and the next speech, “Introduction to Kyoto, Doshisha University” was provided by Associate Prof. Ou Qian, Associate Dean for International Affairs, Doshisha University. After the introduction of Doshisha Business School (DBS), a trial MBA class, “Knowledge Leadership Seminar”, was provided by Prof. Philippe Byosiere from DBS. As a student voice, “What one international student thinks about DBS” was discussed by Mr. Sheng Wang from DBS. Finally, a “Lunch Party” was held for the visitors with students who have experience visiting and learning at Fudan University.
January 14, 2009
Japanese winter
We had snow in mountains in Kyoto. From our office at University we can normally see mountains called Mt. Hiei (Hieizan) clearly. The sky is not clear today but we could see some snow on the mountains for the first time this year. In this year it is quite a warm winter and we had a longer autumn than usual, but these days it is cold in Japan, including the Kansai area where Kyoto prefecture is. In Kyoto city, we have several snowy days a year, but the amount of snow is much less than Hokkaido or the northern parts of Japan. In those areas, they have heavy snow on the roads every day during winter. When I was a student, I used to go skiing in those area, and would stay there for two to three months in winter at a skier's lodge to work and practice skiing almost every year. Today's snow in Kyoto reminds me of the old memory of my active period of life, which I can not do now.
It was good fun to be away from home and to stay in a snowy area; to put myself into nature at a lodge surrounded by deep snow and mountains. I really felt that I was free and also had unique experience even though it was a hard time. I woke up at 5 am to prepare the breakfast for customers who were staying at that lodge. Then my duty as a staff member was cleaning rooms, making beds and removing snow on the roads in front of the lodge. After lunch, I could have free time to ski for three to four hours. For the first few weeks, I really enjoyed skiing to develop my skills of skiing, but I used to get tired of skiing because I used to the same slopes, saw the same scenery and had the same things to do: going up by lift to the top of the mountain and going down on skis twenty times a day almost everyday. I was, however, interested in meeting new people who stayed in the lodge and we could ski together. After skiing I worked for the lodge until night preparing the customers' dinner and there was a party sometimes.
There are many ski fields and resorts across Japan, mainly in Hokkaido and in the northern part of Japan. When the Japanese yen is weak against foreign currency, some resorts in Hokkaido have a lot of travellers from Australia who come to ski and some travellers from different Asian countries because Hokkaido has good snow called powder snow, nice Japanese food, seafood and vegetables, and hot springs called "Onsen". Now the Japanese yen is quite strong against the US dollar and other currencies but if you have a chance to come to Japan, I recommend a ski resort in Japan for you to relax and you can have a Japanese experience such a many Japanese are enjoying in their vacation.
January 07, 2009
Year end and New Year’s traditional customs in Japan
I have quite a lot of things to do at the end of the year and at the beginning of the new year here in Japan. We cleaned our whole house especially we did the places which we normally don't care very much about such as cleaning the back side and rails of windows, for caps of the lights in the halls and other details in our home and garden. On the first day of the year, "Gantan", in Japan, many people traditionally go to pray at a Shinto shrine or Buddhism temple with family members or friends, after eating "Osechi" which is traditional Japanese food for the new year. It consists on meat and vegetables which can be kept for several days at the beginning of the New Year. We also went to the nearest temple called "Nakayama Temple" to pray to the god for good luck of our family members and myself.
On the second day of the New Year, I went to our relatives house with my wife and my son. This is my wife's original home and almost ten relatives met together. We played table tennis and table games with our children. We had a good fun for the family event once a year. Next day, 3rd of January, I went to eat crab at a nearby restaurant with my family members. It has been also our family event every year for four years. Depending on families, different events are available for the New Year in Japan, but many people go to their home towns and spend several days for the New Year with their families. How were your year end and New Year events in your country?
December 12, 2008
Video interview of two faculties from foreign Universities 3
We could have about 10 minutes of video interviews with Professor Gordon Redding from INSEAD in France and Professor Raymond Loveridge from Said Business School, University of Oxford in the UK at 2nd floor hall of DBS. They talked about their classes at DBS which will start in autumn next year. I could learn many things from the two faculty members from a different perspective and we discussed about the Global MBA program of Japan in the future even thought it was only for a short time. Those video interviews are coming soon.
Video interview of two faculties from foreign Universities 2
We could have about 10 minutes of video interviews with Professor Fred Robins from the University of Adelaide in Australia and Professor Philippe Debroux from Soka University in Japan at our library of DBS. They talked about their classes at DBS which will start in autumn next year. I could learn many things from the two faculty members from a different perspective and we discussed about the Global MBA program of Japan in the future even thought it was only for a short time. Those video interviews are coming soon.
Video interview of two faculties from foreign Universities 1
Two faculty members who are teaching on the GMBA next year visited DBS for the conference called “The Euro-Asia Management Studies Association (EAMSA)”. EAMSA held its 25th Annual Conference from Thursday 4th to Saturday 6th December 2008.ttp://www.eamsa.org/conference2008/
Just one day before this conference, we could have about 10 minutes of video interviews with Dr. Glenn D. Hook from the University of Sheffield in the UK and Dr. Joop Stam from the University of Twente in the Netherlands at our library of DBS. They talked about their classes at DBS which will start in autumn next year. I could learn many things from the two faculty members from a different perspective and we discussed about the Global MBA program of Japan in the future even thought it was only for a short time. Those video interviews are coming soon.
December 04, 2008
The changing leaves in Kyoto
The Kyoto Imperial Palace (Kyoto Gosho) is one of the imperial palaces of Japan. Today is the first day the buildings inside of the Palace are open to the public for autumn this year. We came here to take some photos of the changing leaves (red leaves) in autumn for the new Global MBA website of DBS. This palace is located in the center of Kyoto city and is just next to our university named Doshisha University, so it is very convenient to go to there from our working place. It is within walking distance.
We didn’t know that it was open. We could say it is a lucky chance because it is open for only five days in autumn every year. By chance we could take many photos inside the palace with its historical buildings and beautiful Japanese gardens. So many people, including those living local and travelers from many areas of Japan and other countries came. Actually, it is a very nice season to travel in Japan now.
The main hall is called “Shishinden” and the beautiful Japanese garden is called “Oike-niwa”, where there is a garden and a pond. The imperial palace has been located in this area since 794. The Palace building itself, is one of the oldest and most important buildings in Japan, and has been destroyed by fire and rebuilt many times over the course of its history. It has been destroyed and rebuilt eight times, six times during the 250-year-long peace of the Edo Period.
2008, DBS-MXJ Symposium at Xi’an JiaoTong University in China
There are two purposes for this trip to Shanghai and Xi’an for me. One is to attend the meeting at Shanghai Rotary club and the other is that I give a presentation at Xi’an JiaoTong University. The presentation was hosted by the MBA program of Xi’an JiaoTong University (MXJ) and seven speakers gave their presentation including two professors from DBS and MXJ.
I had time for a 30 minute presentation and 10 minutes for Q&A. My talk was entitled “Attractive website for the niche market using cutting edge technologies web2.0”. In the presentation, I wanted to say that the “Internet is good at niche market” using the Kakushin Juku case and Global MBA case. After my presentation, I had several interesting questions. I enjoyed this presentation and was rather less nervous this time because this was the second time to give a presentation at this university since last year.
After this symposium we were invited to a Chinese style dinner party by MXJ faculty members, MBA students and PhD candidates from Xi’an JiaoTong University. On the last day of this trip we had an excursion with some people to visit the historical place of Kukai, who is an important person to spread Tantric Buddhist in ancient Japan. I will post an article about Kukai later.
November 25, 2008
Rotary Meeting at Shanghai Rotary Club
After I visited the highest observatory in the world here in Shanghai called “Mori Building”, which is 492m high and 100 stories high and I made an inspection tour of the powerful city of Shanghai in the day time. At the same day, I participated in the meeting of the Shanghai Rotary club in China meeting on Tuesday night at the Regal International East Asia Hotel. It was the 2nd time for me to visit this historic club meeting, which is the 2nd oldest club in Asia and I found the number of members is increasing to around 70 members consisting of only foreign passport holders. I was so happy to visit this meeting because they were so welcoming me when I visited about four years ago, and this time also they welcomed me, so I donated some money to thank them for the happy time and I made a short speech. I was surprised to hear that they have 10 to 20 visitors from all over the world each time. I could meet many people and enjoyed talking. I also find the many differences between their club meeting and ours. At the beginning they say the four tests, there is no song, they have a talking “spot” where they talk about new things like we do in Japan, they give donations called “happy time” and “sad time”, then there is dinner time where we can chat with people at the same table. I talked about Shanghai Rotary Club and they asked my purpose to visit I told them that I will give a speech about the Internet at Xi’an JiaoTong University in Xi’an a few days later. If I can I would like to come here again to see the lovely people in this club.
November 07, 2008
The first launch of Global MBA website from Doshisha Business School
We, MBA website project staff, have just launched our global MBA site of Doshisha Business
School today. Thank you so much for your co-operation.
http://gmba.doshisha.ac.jp/index.html
As I informed it by using this weblog before, we have been created this site since September this year. After it takes about two month and more, the first launch has been released today. I was wondering if several mistakes could be hiding somewhere even though we checked many time by several people. Please let us know if you find some of them. Anyway have a look and feedback any comments about this site to create it better.
October 30, 2008
Faculty interviews in English at DBS
We, MBA
website project staff, had two interviews with faculty members who will be teaching
on the Global MBA (GMBA) course in English next autumn in 2009. Both faculty
members explained about their study area, their lectures and current issues
which are happening now in the world. The first faculty member was Professor
Noriko Hama who is a famous economist as well. She talked mainly about the
economic crisis that is happening now in the world and explained about what
should be the next move by the Japanese Government.
The next faculty member was Professor Kaoru Yamaguchi who is a specialist of “System Dynamics”. For the GMBA, he is teaching about environmental issues and sustainable business modeling. These two experiences of interviewing faculty members for the “video syllabus” were very impressive for me and I learned about some important academic issues even briefly. Those videos will be launched on the GMBA website next month.
YouTube video of Prof. Noriko Hama is here.
Visited Jidai Matsuri in Kyoto, 2008
Three of us, an English lady, an Australian guy, and myself visited the Jidai Matsuri (Festival of the Ages), which is one of the three major festivals in Kyoto. About 2,000 people, dressed in exquisites costume from the various periods of Kyoto history, participated in the parade. The procession winds down from the Old Imperial Palace to Heian-Jingu. Each era consisted of several hundred people with costume and animals such as horses and cows, as well as flags and floats. They were so beautiful and gorgeous. I like the group of females and children wearing nice clothes called Kimono. Quite a few visitors came from many countries in the world to see this festival in the nice cool weather of autumn after a hot and humid summer. Our purpose to visit Jidai Festival is to take photos and create articles about festivals in Kyoto for the new website of the Global MBA at DBS to introduce various traditional cultures in Kyoto. After about one hour after this parade started, it suddenly started to rain, so we decide to go to a Chinese restaurant for lunch near our school building.
We had to take a quick meal which was called “Chyka-don”. This is rice in a bowl topped with meat and vegetables in a Chinese style. We ordered a quick lunch because we were in a rush for our next appointment. Ordering the same meals for everyone in the group is very Japanese demonstrating the “Group oriented society rather than the individual in Japan ”.
October 23, 2008
Interview of former CEO from Kyocera
I
interviewed Mr. Yasuo Nishiguchi, who is the former CEO and Chairman of Kyocera
at DBS, yesterday. The purpose of the interview was to get a message from him about
Global Business, Global management and the Global MBA at DBS. The video will be
shown on the new website of the Global MBA which will be released next month.
We had very good information from him regarding “Why we need a Global MBA at
DBS and Why Japan and Why Kyoto?”
My relationship with him started with us being classmates on a Ph.D course at Doshisha University and by chance we graduated from the same university in a Osaka. Even so I was so nervous before the interview because it was my first experience of asking someone something on video in Japanese. In addition he is so famous as a Japanese business person. However he talked to me honestly and replied to every question that I asked him. I was very happy to have been able to get an interview with Mr. Nishiguchi this time.
October 11, 2008
Ping-Pong Club
I went to
the stadium to see my son’s Ping-Pong match for the first time. It was the
match for select candidates of high schools for the next prefecture’s match. He
had a chance to win the match with a single and fortunately he won both matches
with straight victories. Finally, his school took third place in this area.
I can see a
difference between son who is relaxing, playing video games, studying at home
and son who is concentrating on sports with club members in out of the home.
The coach of his Ping-Pong team at school said that his role as a vice captain in the team was to
provide emotional and physical support for the captain and communication
between seniors and juniors. I talked with the teacher for the first time, and
we talked about many things such as the match, his team, team members, and his
attitude at school club. I told him that my wife and I wanted him to choose
tennis when he entered junior high school because our family members play
tennis in his elementary school. Since there already many members in the tennis
club, we thought he might not hit balls at all.
Finally, he decided to join the Ping-Pong club. He started to enjoy playing Ping-Pong and he could participate in a lot of matches from the beginning and he was selected the team captain of his junior-high school club. Now I think it was a good choice for Ping-Pong and he learned many things from the sport.
October 04, 2008
YouTube “Insight”
Since last year, I have been using “YouTube” to show my videos to the public. At first I started to launch the five videos regarding Kyoto traditional industries, such as Yuzen Kimono printing, Sushi, woodblock print, Kiyomizu ceramics, traditional fans from a class called “Kakushin Juku”at DBS. After six months as I mentioned before, I got more viewers than I had expected. Recently, I uploaded several videos of Doshisha MBA Alumni video interviews. All of videos have introduced with English title and English subtitle for traditional crafts or English speaking for the Alumni interview. Therefore I believed that most of the visitors to my site in YouTube are coming from foreign countries, but I was not sure which countries they do actually come from.
Then, I found that YouTube has a statistics function called “Insight” in which various statistics and data are available. For instance, which countries the visitors come from and how old they are, how many times the video has been watched, how they find this video and also *what is the popularity of each scene by the graphs and maps. I am now analyzing those data to create a better website using those videos.
*The ups-and-downs of viewership at each moment in your video, compared to videos of similar length. Above the average line, your video is hot: it's retaining more viewers than average and they may be rewinding to watch that point again.Below the average line, your video's gone cold: viewers are not rewinding or may be leaving the video faster than the average
October 01, 2008
30th Foundation Anniversary, our Takarazuka Mukogawa Rotary Club
Our club, Takarazuka Mukogawa Rotary Club, Hyogo in Japan held a party for the 30th Anniversary of the club's foundation. Many guests were invited from mainly Hyogo Prefecture areas in Japan including the Takarazuka city mayor, district governors, district past-governors, sister club members from Matsue Higashi Rotary Club and a lot of club members from different Rotary Clubs. The guest and club members enjoyed the main attractions, such as the video letter from our sister club in the US, local support activity for the little league team in our city, and a show by a student who is our Rotary Yoneyama Scholarship Foundation student from Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region and her friends. The concept of this party is “Hand made”. Usually, we invite famous singers and people who are good at giving speeches, but this time we decided to make our own party “by hand” and create the attraction using unique ideas and hospitality to have the guests enjoy themselves and celebrate our 30th Foundation Anniversary with us.
I was involved in creating the video letter from our sister club in the US called La Habara Rotary Club, which has been our sister club since 1982-1983. We visited this club to record messages from some of the people there including their current club president and past presidents in June this year when the Rotary International Conference in Los Angeles was held with our club members. The guests at the party really enjoyed the messages from our friends in the US.
September 22, 2008
The alumni meeting for taking classes at DBS
Quite a few alumni came to visit DBS on Saturday in Kyoto. The DBS Network (DBSN), which is the DBS Alumni Society, planned to have classes for alumni only who have already graduated from DBS since 2005 to 2007. There were five classes such as Technology for Automobile Company, Service Marketing, Business Strategy, Creative City Kyoto, and Financial Crisis.
People here enjoyed classes from different fields partly because they haven’t participated in any classes for several years after their graduation. It seems very fresh for us, including me. While we were in the MBA, we had so many assignments which make us sleepless and could not have enough time to relax for two years. We studied hard in order to complete the assignments and do the group work in order to make presentations and submit the reports before the deadlines. It was very tough because I had many things to do, such as my main job as the manage of my company, volunteer activities, and taking care of family members at the same time. I sometimes felt that the part time MBA was like a war. Anyway, that’s nothing but a distant memory now. We enjoyed the classes and the reunion of people from different areas in Japan.
On the same day, I planned to take the alumni video messages from the participants. We took videos from four alumni for the new Global MBA website begining in autumn next year. Some of them are living in Tokyo, which is the capital city of Japan, a little far from Kyoto where the university located. So this was a good chance to catch them for shooting videos. After taking those classes, we went to the restaurant to eat and drink with those former warriors again.
September 19, 2008
My motivation to take the International Marketing Class at DBS
My motivation to take this “International Marketing” class is to think about our company’s strategy in the future. We used to have online stores in yahoo.com, eBay auction and also Amazon.com in the US to sell Japanese animated cartoon items and Japanese traditional crafts to customers living overseas. It became very successful in a shot period, but after the boom of cartoons had finished, those stores were closed. Some day in the future, however, if I have a chance to do it again, I would like to succeed for a longer period using the knowledge and theory that I have learned through this class. Now I would like to introduce our experiences of both the internal marketing and the external marketing using the internet for online stores.
At first I would like to explain our domestic market for online stores. I had owned two real video game shops and five mobile phone shops before starting my current job of running an online store. I have been doing this Internet business for about 13 years. My company has two online stores since 1998 in Rakuten, which is the biggest online shopping mall in Japan. The main merchandise is “Name Brand Bags”such as Christian Dior, Gregory, Mz-Wallace, and LeSportsac, for one store and “Posters and Calendars” for the other.
Meanwhile, we also started to sell our products using e-Bay auction, Amazon.com auction for marketing to sell to overseas. Then we made an online store in Yahoo.com in the US. The monthly cost of the US Yahoo was only 30.00 US dollars at that time. We can only use the US currency for the prices of our products, not Japanese yen, in the product pages. At first the type of selling was Business to Consumers (BtoC), but soon we changed the type of selling and to Business to Business (BtoB), so sales became bigger and reached 10 million yen in two months. Our first target market was the US, but sometimes orders came from different countries, such as Australia, the UK, some Asian countries. I found that the Internet was amazingly useful and cheap to sell to the overseas market because creating an online store was easy, if using an Application Service Provider (ASP), as it does not require special skills to set up and it is much lower in cost compared with real stores.
After finishing this International Marketing Class, I would like to understand completely what international marketing is. Then some day, when I start to build an online store for the international market again, I believe I could use the knowledge and theories which I have learned through this class.
September 18, 2008
The alumni Interview, Mr. Shinmura from Ganko Food Service
We asked Mr. Shinmura to make a video message for the international students of the Global MBA at DBS which will start in autumn of next year. He was an alumni who graduated from DBS in 2008. He is one of the managing directors and a member of the board at Ganko Food Service CO. LTD. The firm has more than 100 Japanese Sushi restaurants across Japan. Especially, the restaurants in Kyoto are unique because the company bought a traditional huge old house with a beautiful Japanese garden and recreated it into a restaurant.
The customers from overseas and from Japan enjoy going to the restaurants, having an experience of Japanese traditional foods with Sushi, and after meal their go to the nice garden of the restaurant. The garden has a waterfall, traditional ponds, and lots of different trees which are very unique and can be seen only in Japan. The prices are reasonable with including the drinks such as beer, Japanese hot or cold Sake, and wine, etc. He started to work in this firm when he was a university student as a part time job and after several years, he became a managing director and a board member, CFO, CIO, and CHO.
He said in the interview that he enjoyed the business school "Kakushinjuku Project" which is a class for traditional craftsmen and craftswomen to who are supported by the business school which provided an MBA education. Mr. Shinmura was inspired and got many hints from the class and used those in his business. For instance, one of the lectures, Mr. Kawabe who is doing CG (Computer Graphics) Yuzen using the patterns and designs from Yuzen Printing which is the traditional painting method of Kimono, Japanese traditional dress. Mr. Kawabe was growing up in Kyoto surrounded by lots of Kimono due to the family business. He learned this skill and used the patterns and designs which have been inherited for several hundred years by their ancestors. He had the idea of using elements of Kimono design in different materials and items by creating digital data, such as a swimming suites for Synchronized swimming, bags, clocks, and umbrellas, etc.
Mr. Shinmura got this idea from Mr. Kawabe and he wants to use elements of Japanese food, including Sushi, in Japan to use at Japanese restaurants overseas for expanding their business overseas. He told us at the end of the video about this dream for his future.
September 10, 2008
A volunteer is wanted to give a message in English on the new Global MBA
Since last month, we have started to prepare for the create on of English website for the new course of Doshisha Business School (DBS) in Kyoto, Japan, which will start from next autumn. I am one of the members of the project team to create the website for mainly for overseas students who are interested in coming to study here at DBS. To achieve this purpose, it should be an attractive website and dispatch lots of messages why in DBS, why in Kyoto, and why in Japan? in a different ways. I think the recent trend is often called “Web 2.0”, in which information is dispatched from individuals such as students,faculty members, alumni at university using video, photos, and weblogs, etc. through normal websites and community sites called SNS (Social Networking Services). I would like to create such an infrastructure for the English website to dispatch various information to the world to show, how Doshisha Business School is attractive. Not only nice are there facilities such as its modern building with excellent security, a 24 hour library with wired and wireless the Internet access, individual lockers, a gym, and the coliseum style class rooms, but also there are a variety of students who come from many world famous industries in Japan such as Omron, Kyocera, Panasonic, Sharp, Japan IBM, Microsoft Japan, Kyoto traditional industries and many entrepreneurs.
First of all, we started to take videos of the alumni who have already graduated from DBS and asked them to give us as many messages as possible. At the same time we asked of messages from the faculties who support us from overseas universities is the format of video messages of discussions with several faculties. Next, we are going to create a web blog by the students, alumni and faculties and also a photo slide show to the demonstrate student life in Kyoto, Japan, in addition to general information. Please have a look a look at video we have already taken messages from several alumni and exchange students from Asian countries. These Google Video lists include those of traditional industries’ as well. We have already made video interviews with Mr. Sanda from Kyocera, Mr. Shinmura from Ganko Food Service, and Jennifer, a Chinese exchange student in 2008 from Xi’an JiaoTong
University. The new videos of Mr. Ishimoto, Mr. Awano are coming soon.
http://jp.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=pokejapan(YouTube)
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=pokejapan&emb=0&aq=f# (Google Video)
We sincerely welcome anybody who wants to give a messages on our video message project. Anybody is welcome, if you have graduated from DBS or are now a DBS student who speaks English fluently or not. Please do not hesitate to contact us. Your message can help to create the future of DBS.
August 24, 2008
The alumni Interview, Mr. Sanda from Kyocera
I asked to take a video interview in English from the person who was a 1st year alumni of DBS so as to show it on our new website for the new course, the Global MBA. Now he is working in Kyocera, which is the one of the well-known global firms in Kyoto and works at the international sales division. This time I asked the following question in English instead of a native English speaker.
1. Please introduce a little bit about yourself including what you do.
2. What did you learn at DBS?
3. What are the most impressive things at DBS?
4. How did you enjoy it besides studying at DBS?
5. How do you use the things which you have learnt at work?
6. What will you do in the future in your business or in your private life?
7. Please give some messages to the international students who are interested in studying at DBS. Then why in Kyoto, Japan?
I asked the above questions and he replied very nicely and confidently, based on his work experiences. He provided feedback to us and recommendations for the international students who would like to come and study at DBS in Kyoto. He recommended taking an MBA course in Kyoto because Japan is one of the economically important countries in Asia, more important through Globalization and Kyoto has lots of well-known international firms such as Nintendo, Omron, and Kyocera, etc. The video is coming soon on the new English website of DBS.
August 21, 2008
Gozan No Okuribi, “Daimonji” Five Mountain Send-off Bonfires
In Kyoto, five beautiful bonfires in the shape of Chinese characters, “Kanji”, which are used in Japan, are lit on the mountainsides surrounding the city to send the ancestral spirits that had returned to this world back to the “Other side”. This is an ancient folk festival that marks the end of Obon, and is believed to be a time for the dead to return to the spirit world. The name of the festival is Okuribi (送り火), the Buddhist Festival of the Dead. This festival has been continued for more than 300 years in Kyoto. Here is the list of five mountains and the characters of each of the fires.
First of all, the “大” (Dai) fire was started, which is the largest character at 8:00PM. It was so large and clear to see. Ten minutes later, two characters “妙・法” (Myo/Ho) were lit at the same time in the same direction. Then the “舟形” (Funagata) fire was started, but we wondered why the boat was in the mountain. I think it will send the spirits to the spirit world by boat. Finally, the other “大” (Left Dai) was lit. This is the same kanji character as the first Dai, but the shape is a little different from the other and it is located on the other mountain further away from us. According to the news paper of the following day this, one of the four major festivals in Kyoto, had around 100,000 people visit from many places in Japan. Fortunately, we could really enjoy watching the five fires in the four mountains from the hidden place which had very few people in the extremely hot summer in Kyoto.
1. Daimonji (大文字), the character meaning "large" or "great:"
on Daimonji-Yama/Higashi-Yama, Nyoigatake at 8:00PM
2. My?/H? (妙・法), the characters meaning "excellent law"
on Matsugasaki, Nishi-Yama/Higashi-Yama at 8:10PM
3. Funagata (舟形), the shape of a boat:
on Nishigamo, Funa-Yama at 8:15PM
4. Hidari Daimonji (左大文字), again, the character meaning "large:"
on Daihoku-San, Hidaridaimonji-San at 8:15PM
5. Toriigata (鳥居形), the shape of a torii or shrine gate:
on Toriimoto, Mandara-San at 8:20PM
I had a chance to see the Daimonji Festival for the first time from our university, Doshisha in Kyoto. We could see four of all five of the fires from the roof of one of the buildings of the university with three Chinese students and two of them were exchange students from the MBA course of Xi’an JiaoTong University in China.
I would like to introduce about two articles written by the exchange students, after they participated in this festival as follows:
A Beautiful Poem of Summer Night (written by Jennifer)
I stand for the China Xi'an JiaoTong University international exchange students arrived at the Kyoto almost 3 months. In this period of time ,I except felt cross- culture, the most unforgettable experience was caught up with the Gozan no Okuribi (五山送り火), more commonly known as Daimonji (大文字), is one of the iconic festivals of Kyoto. It is the culmination of the O-Bon festival on August 16th.
I and my friend set out at 6 PM on August 16th evening , left for the DOSHISHA Business School where have arranged with Mr. YASU. On the way to DBS, we saw above the bank of Kamo River crowded with people who expect to the Gozan no Okuribi would start at 8 PM. It is completely different from the usual peaceful atmosphere.
We mounted the steps of the highest building of DOSHISHA University, standing the roof, was waiting for the Gozan no Okuribi starting. Starting at 8PM, the giant bonfires were lit, each with a distinctive shape. Three of the fires form giant Chinese characters, and two form familiar shapes. Its represented for Daimonji (大文字), My?/H? (妙・法), Funagata (舟形), Hidari Daimonji (左大文字) and Toriigata (鳥居形), respectively. When the fire was taken turn to light, the entire night sky was illumined by the firing form giant Chinese characters. We surprise for the magnificence of the Daimonji, just taken many photographs, wanted to record this beautiful scene.
We gone through the process of Gozan no Okuribi, at the meantime felt the Japanese attach importance to the tradition. From numerous local populaces on the way, to the local mass media reported on regarding the Gozan no Okuribi, I was aware of respect for the traditional festival by Japanese. Although the Japanese economy is very developed, the Japanese actually want to develop the state economy with retaining themselves culture! Therefore, compare with their economy, Japanese take proud of own country culture. My Japanese classmate told me when I just arrived at Japan: KYOTO will happen to the Gozan no Okuribi after 2 months. Please remember to look! Whenever my Japanese friends mention to the Japanese culture, they easy to break through his primness, becomes exciting. The Japanese respect the tradition, inherit the tradition, and willing to discuss and propagandize their country tradition.
To be honest, when we saw the beautiful scene of Gozan no Okuribi, It is remarkable that not only lit several piles of fires. I hear of the Kyoto Government was framed the strict bill to control the urban district building (The highest construction not to be allowed to surpass ten floors), in order to the field of Gozan no Okuribi vision would not be disturb by the modern construction. And the human were responsible for lighting on the hilltop who kept the kindling and firewood piles already two days and nights. These laborious works is the service personals. They were volunteers, do not gain the rewards. Therefore such one holiday's inheritances, from the government apparatus to the populace, have made much effort together. Thence more and more people could able to see the Gozan no Okuribi. This is precise performance that the Japanese inherit historical.
I would remember forever: On the August 16th 2008 night, the Gozan no Okuribi cut through the night sky of KYOTO, the flaming firelight looked like a beautiful poem of summer night.
I should thanks to Mr. YASU and other Japanese friends provided us for arrangement. Thanks a lot!
Some experience and feelings of Japanese Daimonji festival (written by ZhaoWeiJia)
I was invited by Mr. Yasu to visiting Japanese traditional festival?Daimonji, I‘ve no idea about this festival at first, just for curious I went to watch this ceremony.
From their introduction, I knew that Daimonji festival is one of the famous ceremonies in Kyoto of Japan, and we watch the whole process of ceremony in a very special place, where is an excellent view for watch the fires, so that we can see all of the five giant bonfires are lit on mountains surrounding the city. It signifies the moment when the spirits of deceased family members, who are said to visit this world during O-Bon, are believed to be returning to the spirit world. The most famous?and the first to be lit?is the character dai (大), on Kyoto's Daimonji mountain. The other four fires are lit at five to ten-minute intervals, and by 8:30, all the characters can be seen. Each bonfire lasts for 30 minutes.
When I knew the fire lit just for ancestors, I feel a little shock, not only because Japanese pay much attention on this festival, but there are so many Japanese whom came from different area for joined in the ceremony. In china, we have some ceremony for memory ancestor, but few of the citizens participate in it, what a sharp contrast
From these kinds of Japanese ceremony, I feel the conformity culture again, because most of the Japanese attach close importance to the traditional culture, and some of them wear Japanese traditional clothes to watching the festival. In my opinion, Japanese government and citizen dedicate themselves to keep traditional culture, they keep the old shrin so well and they keep so many traditional festival and ceremony. Japanese is the developed country which the world’s second largest GDP and famous for high-tech technology, but they keep their traditional cultural so well and deeply impression generation by generation, I think it is a really interesting and thought-provoking phenomenon, of course, this point should be learned by Chinese.
At present, china in a rapid development stage, especially after 1980’s economic reform, for strengthen Chinese economic, government and citizen introduced a lot of western management way, these new western thinking and behavior way, its really lashed Chinese mind. Of course, after economic reform, Chinese gain a outstanding achievement, not only in economic area, but also in political area, which promote Chinese status in the worldwide. Meanwhile, Chinese throw away lot of traditional culture, more and more Chinese young generation like the western festival but not Chinese traditional festival, they also don’t like traditional cloth such as cheongsam, more of young people prefer to jeans or sexy T-shirt.
Maybe Chinese government realized something wrong, so changed some modern festival days, try to keep traditional festival day, which for keep traditional culture and educate young generation, let them learn more Chinese history and culture.
So, for me, we should learn the high-tech technology and advanced management way from Japan, we still should learn more how to management a country’s culture and how to keep the features.
August 11, 2008
Professional student interviews
We have been holding interviews with junior high school students near our office for four years. This volunteer activity is one of the local services of our Rotary Club, Takarazuka Mukogawa in Japan. They select one firm from the list of 36 occupations and visit the firm which they are interested in visiting. I asked them why they chose my company and they said “We are interested in Internet businesses which will be more important in the future.” At first I explained with some questions about our online shop, such as our products, the structure of our industry, strategies, difficulties and the difference between real shops and virtual shops. They prepared questions about the occupations as follows:
1 What do you do?
2 When did you start to think about your job?
3 Why did you choose your current job?
4 What is the interesting part of your job?
5 What is the difference between students and adults?
6 What do you recommend doing for the future when you are high school students?
I replied to those questions from my experiences in about one hour. They asked many questions besides those. They said most of them have never thought about their occupation because they don’t yet know what they can do. I was the same in my high school days, but it's important to start to think about it even if it changes later. It is helpful to decide what major they want to take in university as well.
August 09, 2008
Our 10th anniversary at Rakuten online shopping mall
I was invited to the Rakuten Expo 2008 by Rakuten Co Ltd, which is the biggest Internet online shopping mall in Japan, because our shop has its 10th anniversary this year on Rakuten. Rakuten started the shopping mall business in 1997, one year after we decided to have a shop on Rakuten added to our original online shops. In the Rakuten Expo 2008, we had a champagne party with several shop owners or representatives from shops which started in 1997 and 1998. I was surprised to hear that there were only 39 shops now, as even Rakuten had about 25,000 shops. In 1997, they started 13 shops and had 6 staff members including CEO, Hiroshi Mikitani, who is the founder of Rakuten. I only met him a few years ago, but yesterday we talked for a while along with some of the board members who used to be my company’s consultants. Just ten years passed, but many things have changed such as more user online shopping, broad band access, shopping by mobile phone, competitive markets etc. They say their strategy would target the global market and an online shop by mobile phone. I am interested in their global market strategy as they have a very good shopping system called RMS which is able to compete with the overseas Internet firms. Also we had the experience of having sold many things to overseas markets.
Recent Posts
- Renewal of the website for the Global MBA at Doshisha University
- Rainbow
- New website for the Global MBA Students
- Presentation for a HEC student
- The exchange student program
- Business trip for Tokyo
- New YouTube site for the Global MBA at Doshisha Business School
- Press conference for the launch of the new Global MBA at Doshisha Business School
- My Global Kakushin Juku video with Doshisha song
- My first video for Doshisha Business School
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