It seems the
Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) smoked the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in today`s national election, ending the LDP`s five decade rule over Japan. Change comes slowly here, I guess. And "change" seemed to be the theme in the 2 week campaign. 2 weeks. Imagine only having to endure Obama/Clinton/McCain/Bush/Kerry/Gore/Whoever for a grand total of 2 weeks per election! Sweet. No such luck, I suppose. Americans prefer those two year marathons instead. Anyway, as the new guys cruise into power to change Japan, the country will get
Yukio Hatoyama as
Prime Minister. He`s an engineer trained at Tokyo University in Japan and Stanford University in California. It might be interesting to have a Ph.D. engineer running the place for while. A different way of thinking is certainly needed.
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Japanese companies get dinged all the time for being risk adverse. Not these guys -- Failure: The Secret to Success. Some great stories of gigantic failures in this little video. I love the quotes going back to old man Honda, and it`s clear the culture of try-fail-try-again still pervades their message today. Sure, this is a corporate video, but it`s pretty well done. And how can you not love the guy talking about how his engine blew into a million pieces and splattered all over the track in front of millions of people? Failure. Disappointment. Rejection. On a grand scale. That very same team brought home the championship a few years later, though. And that`s the key. Failure is the secret to success.
Have you ever failed? How big?
I`ll watch this video a few times today. Especially today.
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On Oct 11th, I'll be participating on a panel about cross-cultural engineering at Pasona Tech in Tokyo.
Should be great fun and very educational as well. We'll explore how
language and cultural issues affect Japanese engineers as they do their
work and interact with other engineers from around the world. I'll be
talking about my experiences in Japan, China, and India in particular,
but I'll also probe some things I've learned from dealing with
developers across many language and cultural barriers in other regions
on the OpenSolaris project.
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TLUG President
Edward Middleton ?
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Sakurai-san will be monitoring the panel. Here we are together from a previous cross-cultural event.
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Japan sees a chance to promote its energy-frugal ways:
"According to the International Energy Agency, based in Paris, Japan
consumed half as much energy per dollar worth of economic activity as
the European Union or the United States, and one-eighth as much as
China and India in 2005. While the country is known for green products
like hybrid cars, most of its efficiency gains have been in less
eye-catching areas, for example, in manufacturing ... Japan's strides
in efficiency are clearest in heavy industries like steel, which are
the nation's biggest consumers of power." -- International Herald
Tribune
Seems that high oil prices are offering the Japanese new markets around
the world for their technologies. China seems particularly interested.
For obvious reasons.
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After viewing
Amory Lovins' Ted Talk on Winning the Oil Endgame,
I downloaded and printed the book. It's free. Basically, with innovative engineering and some focused determination,
Lovins says the "United States can get completely off oil and
revitalize its economy -- led by business for profit and by the
military for effectiveness and conflict prevention." Great quote. But I
like his ending quote even better: "The US has more market power than
OPEC. Ours is on the demand side. We are the Saudi Arabia of mega
barrels. We can use less oil faster than they can conveniently sell
less oil ... this is an oil endgame we should all be playing to win."
Love it.
At this point, the American people should demand nothing short of a
comprehensive policy to rid the country of oil so we have 100% energy
independence. 100%. Period. Could you think of a more effective
economic and national security policy than energy independence? Or, of
course, we can continue to fight wars over a scarce resource and align
ourselves with dictatorships to use a product that causes disease and
harms the environment.
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Honda Robots Pair Up to Lend a Hand
-- "'By the end of 2010s, we'd like to see these robots working at
every street corner of the city,' said Tomohiko Kawanabe of Honda's
Fundamental Technology Research Center." -- Associated Press
Humm. Interesting. I wonder if these guys have an operating system
inside? There must be more than a little software running what is being
called "
one of the world's most advanced humanoids" right? And I wonder why the Japanese are leading in this area of technology?
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Really interesting article about software mimicking the process of trial-and-error and natural selection --
Don't invent, evolve. This reminds me how important it is to iterate on small things every day. You can't fail unless you stop. Thanks for the link, Gautam. Excellent find.
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Is globalization starting to level the playing field? Perhaps in some
segments of some markets it is. Check out these few paragraphs from a
long piece in the Wall Street Journal --
Some
in Silicon Valley begin to sour on India: A few bring jobs back as pay
of top engineers in Bangalore Skyrockets:
***
Several years on, the forces of globalization are starting to even
things out between the U.S. and India, in sophisticated technology
work. As more U.S. tech companies poured in, they soaked up the pool of
high-end engineers qualified to work at global companies, belying the
notion of an unlimited supply of top Indian engineering talent. In a
2005 study, McKinsey & Co. estimated that just a quarter of India's
computer engineers had the language proficiency, cultural fit and
practical skills to work at multinational companies.
The result is increasing competition
for the most skilled Indian computer engineers and a narrowing
U.S.-India gap in their compensation. India's software-and-service
association puts wage inflation in its industry at 10% to 15% a year.
Some tech executives say it's closer to 50%. In the U.S., wage
inflation in the software sector is under 3%, according to Moody's
Economy.com.
Rafiq Dossani, a scholar at Stanford
University's Asia-Pacific Research Center who recently studied the
Indian market, found that while most Indian technology workers' wages
remain low -- an average $5,000 a year for a new engineer with little
experience -- the experienced engineers Silicon Valley companies covet
can now cost $60,000 to $100,000 a year. "For the top-level talent,
there's an equalization," he says.
That means that for a large swath of
Silicon Valley -- start-ups and midsize companies that do sophisticated
tech work -- India is no longer the premier outsourcing destination.
While such companies make up just a fraction of India's outsourcing
work, they had been an early catalyst for the growth of India's
information-technology business and helped the country attract other
outsourcing clients. Their rethinking of India raises red flags for the
country.
***
So, the article seems to be articulating the position that maybe India
is not the best place to grab your cheap labor anymore because the
cost of top engineering talent is rising.
Oops. Sorry, Silicon Valley. A funny thing happened along the way of
globalization -- a new market was created and its beginning to assert
itself. Better look elsewhere for your outsourcing needs. And the
article points out that this is actually the case. Vietnam and the
Philippines are now hot for cheap tech labor.
Don't get me wrong. This article is a pretty fair piece. I'm only
criticizing mildly. But my perspective has changed
significantly, and I read stuff like this very differently now. Ok, so
wages of top engineers in Bangalore are rising, and as a result, some
tech firms in the Bay Area are looking elsewhere to save some cash.
Fine. That's part of globalization. But why is that considered a "red
flag" for India? Why can't it
simultaneously be considered a "green flag" demonstrating the
growth
and increased
value
of the top engineering talent in India
?
That's exactly how an American would view it had we been discussing
Silicon Valley. But I don't see that context expressed in this article.
It's all one way -- saving expenses by outsourcing in far away places
so one side benefits. But you can look at it another way. Since these
Indian engineers are worth more they must be putting out better stuff,
so what new innovations will they create in the future that will
transform India's economy and make it even more competitive? Isn't that
a perfectly reasonable perspective as well?
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