Book Description
"Toyota is becoming a double threat: the world's finest manufacturer and a truly great innovator . . . that formula, a combination of production prowess and technical innovation, is an unbeatable recipe for success."
-- Fortune, February 2006
For the first time, an insider reveals the formula behind Toyota's unceasing quest to innovate and do more with less, a philosophy that has made it one of the ten most profitable companies in the world (and worth more than GM, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, and Honda combined). In a rare look into Toyota's ability to consistently achieve breakthroughs that outperform the competition, The Elegant Solution explains what Toyota associates have known all along: it's not about the cars. Rather, Toyota's astounding success is just the visible result of a hidden creative process that begins with a seven-digit number.
One million. That's how many new ideas the Toyota organization implements every year. These ideas come from every level of the organization -- from the factory floors to the corporate suites. And organizations all over the world want to learn how it's done. Now senior University of Toyota advisor Matthew May shows how any company can achieve an environment of everyday innovation and discover the kinds of elegant solutions that hold the power to change the game forever. World-class benchmarks like Lexus, Prius, Scion -- even Toyota's vaunted production system -- are simply shining examples of elegant solutions.
A tactical playbook for team-based innovation, The Elegant Solution delivers powerful lessons in breakthrough thinking in a provocative yet practical guide to the three core principles and ten key practices that shape successful business innovation. Innovation isn't just about technology -- it's about value, opportunity, and impact. When a company embeds a real discipline around tapping ingenuity in the pursuit of perfection, the sky is the limit. Dozens of case studies (from Toyota and other companies) illustrate the universal power and applicability of these concepts. A unique "clamshell strategy" prepares managers to successfully lead and sustain the innovation effort.
At once a thought-starter and a taskmaster, The Elegant Solution is a vital prescription for anyone wanting to truly master business innovation.
Customer Reviews:
The Elegant Solution.......2007-10-08
This is an excellent (and yes, elegant) overview of the Toyota quality "mindset." The book is a "must read" for for anyone interested in business strategy development. The book offers a readable summary of the principles of the Toyota Way with an emphasis on the development of the Lexus and Prius lines including practical examples of the elements of the approach advocated. When a company has amassed assets greater than GM, Ford, Chrysler, VW and Honda combined, their approach may be worth deeper study. I highly recommend this practical, important, and very readable book.
Nice stories, little new content.......2007-08-27
I excepted a lot from the elegant solution. It has been recommended by a lot of persons as a must read. Honestly, I was dissapointed. It's still an good book, but didn't find it as "classic" as people had suggested to me.
"The elegant solution" is about tools for creating innovation on your job. These tools are based on Toyota's tools and practices. The book is devided in three parts. The first part sets three general principles. The second part, by far the largest, provides the tools for innovation, the practices. The last part talks about implementing these practices.
The three principles are "the art of ingenuity", "pursuit of perfection" and "rhythm of fit". They were interesting principles, but not really new or shocking. Sometimes I found them even a little too vague.
The practices range from "thinking in pictures" to "master the tension". Each chapter shortly states the practice and explains the key ideas. After that it uses stories to clarify the practice. Lot's of stories are from inside Toyota. Some stories related to Lance Armstrong, a little too many in my opinion and they were somewhat boring. Anyways, in general, the stories were what made the book interesting.
The third part didn't provide very much content.
In summary, I enjoyed the book, for the stories. I didn't find the practices new and the book didn't provided me with any new insight that other lean books did not provide. The book was written a little bit too much in a "popular style" which annoyed me.
Worth reading for the stories. When wanting to know more on lean or toyota I'd recommend other books like "Toyota way" or "Lean product and process development".
Good nuggets, lots of fluff, some really sloppy thinking.......2007-08-22
I came to this book via the Shampoo Problem that's been floating around the internet these past couple of weeks (which he published in his Change This manifesto). The puzzle is this - a high-end health club puts nice shampoo in their showers, but customers keep stealing it. How do you implement a solution that takes no time to implement, doesn't inconvenience customers at all, and doesn't require any money? That's a lot of constrictions, but the author claims it can be done! (you can search for the answer yourself, I don't want to spoil your fun.)
The question itself reminded me of so many bad professors who would ask totally subjective questions and disregard legitimate answers until they found someone who agreed with them. "Who can give me an example of an apple that's tasty? Macintosh? No too sweet. Granny smith? No too bitter. Golden delicious? Why yes Bobby, you get a star."
This is the tone in my head while I read the book - condescending. Maybe he didn't write it that way, but that's how I'm reading it, and honestly, it fits. On page 21 he chides psychologists for loving "to explain our uniquely hardwired capabilities in hugely complex terms. Sixteen types, thirty-four strengths, etc." and then goes on to give his "easier, more elegant" (but no less arbitrary "four basic buckets of natural ability." (Four because the ancient Greeks loved the number four.) Of course, what he fails to mention is that the psychologists he's referring to all write for pop magazines like Cosmopolitan and their articles appear alongside such classics as "10 ways to improve your sex life" and "5 ways to tell if your man is cheating on you." He also never mentions the "four basic buckets of natural ability" again and they have absolutely no bearing on the rest of the book. (The book is filled with useless random made up facts like those.)
He also throws out sentences that have huge presumptions built in to them, but have absolutely no evidence to back them up. Stuff that, in a seminar you wouldn't want to question him on because "there is no right answer" or the facts are obscure enough that he could bluster his way though most arguments that weren't from an expert on the subject. In book form, though, and knowing better myself, I read this stuff and think "well there's a very poor and inaccurate description." Luckily there's an only 50% chance that even the next sentence will depend on you agreeing with that statement, much less the next page.
In a later section he rehashes "the scientific method" (I put it in quotes because he botched his basic characterization of it) and compares it to other four step iterative processes, mostly those developed by the military - Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA), Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA), Observe-Orient-Decide-Act (OODA), Scan-Analyze-Respond-Assess (SARA), etc. and comes up with his own version, cleverly called IDEA - Investigate, Design, Execute, Adjust. It's not much different than the others, but it's his and he can teach it in seminars as his own. FWIW, "While Toyota officially recognizes only PDCA (not IDEA), they actually use all of these (methodologies) to some degree." (page 73-4)
Well of course they use all of the methodologies to some degree - they all describe the same basic thing, and very few organizations are so button-down that they actually only use a single methodology and follow it to the letter each time.
The very next sentence is "Let's look closer at the process." But that's pretty much the last time PDCA is mentioned in the book, the next section is about process in general and why it's good to "Insist on a common approach."
Another example of sloppy leaps in logic and condescending attitude is the Edsel. (page 93) Ford did their research and designed a car that people would want - except nobody wanted it. Why? "The problem was, all the research was based on a forty-year-old market belief... that buyers fell into one of four income segments: low, low-middle, upper-middle, and upper... Except markets don't think that way. When it comes to cars, consumers were thinking `lifestyle,' not income."
I like how he swaps an old marketing tool for a modern one as if that's the answer to all the world's problems. Lifestyle marketing was originated in the 70's and 80's as a result of - surprise surprise - new market research techniques developed by psychologists who were using statistical analysis more and more in their psychological research. (I wonder if he thinks those psychologists are too complex now.)
He also utterly fails to get into the concept of lifestyle marketing - he tells you why the Edsel failed, and what they should have done, (or his completely arbitrary and baseless versions of them) but what they should have done is literally one word. "lifestyle." Shame on Ford in the 1950's for not using an 80's marketing concept to understand how the market thinks. Why didn't they use the word "lifestyle" instead - then the Edsel would have been a huge success.
Hansei is another example of this sloppy, condescending thinking. "Hansei is the rigorous review conducted after action has been taken. It's a huge and absolutely vital part of learning. And with few exceptions, our Western culture is just plain miserable at it." Of course there's not one mention of the term "post-mortem" which is a western term and performs the exact same function. Sure most businesses don't do it (most businesses don't follow a lot of best practices), but don't pretend that Toyota or "Eastern culture" somehow invented the concept and that nobody in the west does it. If there's an existing best practice that we understand, then why not just tell us about it rather than pretending that it came from the fount of the Toyota godhead?
"Ford hadn't gone to the field to see what was actually happening. They remained in the office and believed the data. Big mistake. The Edsel was dead on arrival, a complete and utter failure."
Of course the next chapter is about how Toyota did the same basic thing, but managed to succeed. Their data told them that the youth of today would be the car buyers of tomorrow (startling, I know). The case study for the Scion reveals absolutely nothing about the techniques they used to study the market - it's the after report.
"Where are these kids going to buy the car? There's no time or money for new stores. That's a problem. That means they go to a Toyota store. Okay, so they'll know it's a Toyota. How do we get around that? Think? We don't. It's not the ugly stepchild. It's legit, but different. It's Scion, offspring of Toyota. Don't ignore the Toyota link, it's got cred...."
Note the use of the magical word "Think" in that paragraph. He totally neglects to address what "Think" means. Think is the Elegant part of the solution (he also likes the word "Intuitive" and uses it liberally), yet he doesn't describe it at all.
"Think" is where all the magic happens. Katie Lucas calls this the "Run really, really fast" step for "how to win a marathon" methodologies. It's the step where all the real difficult, nitty-gritty stuff magically happens. South Park summarizes it "Step 1: Steal underpants. Step 2...... Step 3: Profit."
Ostensibly the whole book is about that one word "Think" but the tools he provides - the IDEA loop, mind mapping, story boarding are nothing new, and the book is utterly lacking a cohesive whole. They're just scattered ideas, praised one second, and then dropped in the next chapter. He even mentions the Toyota "dashboard" which is a tool for getting a quick overview of a problem - except he (again) utterly fails in to a dashboard. "Dashboard" doesn't even appear in the index of the book, and if it did, the only occurrence would be on page 113.
Here's all the text on page 113. "Creative Visual Control - Visual control is an integral part of Toyota's methodology. The Project Management Office of Toyota's North American Parts Operation (NAPO) used creative visual `dashboards' to track performance in their Stretch Goals Initiative (see Chapter 9)."
Chapter 9 is on how to stretch goals, not about dashboards. He clearly states "Visual control is an integral part of Toyota's methodology" yet it's explained nowhere in the book in any depth.
In fairness, Toyota did do something Ford didn't do (or at least something he claims Ford didn't do) - they got to know their market. Really engage them and have a conversation with them. Learn about them, and let those learnings drive their product, and he does get into that in the book.
The main thrust of the book - if I can understand it all because it's couched in so many superlatives and it jumps from topic to topic so fast that it's really difficult to tease core themes out - seems to be something like: Move forward by getting hands-on experience with your product and your customers. Don't dictate strategy based on numbers alone, or build bureaucracies - get down and dirty and get to know the product you're selling and get to know the marketplace. Come up with grand "elegant" visions for the future, but innovate little by little - tiniest bit by tiniest bit. Listen to everyone and implement every good idea, then standardize it so that the whole company benefits. Don't let the numbers do all the talking; learn the context, the story behind the numbers. Which is a pretty good message, and he does give you some tools to do that, but the tools are often vague, and you feel that the real tools are mentioned only in passing.
The subtitle of the book is "Toyota's Formula for Mastering Innovation." If this book was about the "formula" for Coca-Cola, it would say something like "cola syrup and seltzer" and go on about the intuitive and elegant way they matched cola syrup to the bubbling process and created a dynamic new soft drink and how the other soft drink companies of the day - lemonade, sugar-water and apple-juice - failed to really understand the problem, which is why they didn't come up with the cola + seltzer combination first and why they lost so much market share. (If only apple juice had thought "lifestyle" instead of "income segment!")
Overall, it's an okay read and a decent introduction to the subject of business innovation, though for a book that's supposedly written by a guy who's on the ground floor with this stuff, I would expect a *lot* more meat and a lot less fluff. Get it if you think you'll like it, but don't expect as much as the other reviewers seem to be hinting at.
"Keep it lean. Scale it back, make it simple, and let it flow.".......2007-05-22
The subtitle of this book ("Toyota's Formula for Mastering Innovation") is not inaccurate but somewhat misleading. Although, yes, Matthew E. May has much of interest and value to say about the Toyota Production System, his attention is by no means limited to it and to the remarkable organization within which it was developed and within which it continues to flourish. Today, Toyota is one of the ten most profitable companies in the world and worth more than General Motors, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, and Honda...combined. Obviously there are reasons for such extraordinary success but it would be incorrect to assume that other organizations can achieve the same success once they know what Toyota's "formula for mastering innovation" is.
What about this book's title? According to May, "Elegance isn't about being hoity-toity. It's not about lofty concepts and grand designs. It's not about beauty or grace, or anything to do with aesthetics - ugly is okay. Elegance is about something much more profound. It's about finding the `aha' solution to a problem with the greatest parsimony of effort and expense. Creativity plays a part. Simplicity plays a part. Intelligence plays a part. Add in subtlety, economy, and quality, and you get elegance...Elegant solutions relieve creative tension by solving the problem in finito as it's been defined, in a way that avoids creating other problems that then need to be solved. Elegant solutions render only new possibilities to chase and exploit. Finally, elegant solutions aren't obvious, except, of course, in retrospect."
Elegant solutions include library, paper money, pencil, wallet, wristwatch, icebox, mortgage, Social Security, credit card, cell phone, and auto leasing. These and other elegant solutions, as May correctly points out, "universally change the world's attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and habits." Efforts to formulate elegant solutions are guided and informed by three principles: ingenuity in craft, pursuit of perfection, and fit with society. "They're the raison d'etre at Toyota, and nonnegotiable."
Earlier, I suggested that this book takes a close look at the mindset and the process by which Toyota continues to formulate elegant solutions. In fact, the Toyota organization implements a million ideas a year. May also includes within his narrative dozens of non-Toyota cases that indicate that none of the individual concepts are new, or even unique to Toyota. All organizations that formulate elegant solutions have people at all levels and in all areas of operation who possess both an ability and a determination to collectively and completely master all of the concepts as "a way of life, not a program centered on select teams led by specialists with artificial agendas."
But what about much smaller organizations, especially those with severely limited resources? Decision-makers in those organizations will be delighted (and perhaps surprised) to find that May provides a wealth of material that they can immediately put to use, once they understand the "deeper principles" that he discusses in Part I and the "ten key practices supported by tools and techniques" that he discusses in Part II. Then in Part III, May explains "how to put the practices and tools together well to achieve a [desired] result." He helps his reader to track the course of an exemplary team through a day of searching for the elegant solution.
For me, some of the most interesting and valuable material is provided in Chapter 12, "Make Kaizen Mandatory," as May poses again (as he does in other chapters) a combination of Problem, Cause, and Solution:
Problem: Innovation is hit or miss.
Cause: Creativity is misdirected and mismanaged.
Solution: Embed the kaizen ethic.
After a brief review of the factors that came together to help embed the kaizen ethic in Japanese business ethic during the decade or so following World War Two, he goes on to explain that at companies such as Toyota, the key issue is that they view kaizen in terms of standards that are created by the individuals performing the work, and, that standards are dynamic, and not everything gets standardized. These companies establish a best practice, document the standard, and train accordingly. Then in the next chapter, May shares his thoughts about "the power of lean" thinking and execution that reduce (if not eliminate) inconsistency, overload, and (most important) waste. Here is another combination:
Problem: Too many, too much - of everything.
Cause: Assumption that more is better.
Solution: Start thinking lean.
Once again, when it comes to innovation and designing solutions, the emphasis remains the same: "whatever you do, keep it lean. Scale it back, make it simple, and let it flow."
And that is what elegance really is all about.
Easy Reading.......2007-03-25
A must read for learning how to implement and sustain continuous improvement enabking lean to become part of the compny's culture
Book Description
BradyGames'
Power-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life, by Chris Kohler, is a unique book that gives readers an entertaining and authoritative look at the indelible influence the video gaming, particularly, Japanese gaming, has had on the world.
Power-Up is the first English-language work of its kind to examine the reasons behind the success of Japanese video games, rather than focusing on the history of video games. Just some of the features readers will find in this book include:
Profiles of some of the most fascinating Japanese video game designers in the industry, along with a critical look at Japanese video games from their earliest beginnings to new, exciting trends that ride the bleeding edge of popular culture.
Explanations on why Japanese video games are unique and why they resonate so well with young American players.
Fresh insight into classic Japanese video games and the elements that made them so different from American games, the origin of Nintendo, Japan's oldest and largest video game producer, Japanese Role-Playing Games, and much more!
In addition, the future of the Japanese gaming industry is also explored.
- This product is available for sale worldwide.
Customer Reviews:
Great Read........2007-05-13
This book was an excellent read. Kohler does a terrific job of showing the culture links video games have created between Japan and the Western world. It also shows the stark cultural contrasts. It made me reflect on how much Japanese culture I've been exposed to without knowing it.
Great reading, but touches only the mainstream games.......2007-02-09
This is a good book about japanese videogames and their impact in the western world. The problem, and I agree with the other reviewers, is that the focus deals only with the mainstream and most popular games like Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy. Sure it talks about Dragon Quest(relatively unknown in America until recently) and ICO, but still left many open holes.
But if you forget this flaw, it's really a great and satisfying reading, and the author constructs the text very well. Worth your time. It's a four star book, but I'll give four and half stars (five in Amazon) because it's a good and very little explored theme.
Gaming History in the eye of the beholder..........2006-08-20
History in the eye of the beholder
The boot has very useful information for video game collectors and researchers who are looking for information related to mostly Nintendo oriented lore. I stress its for game collectors and researchers vice enthusiasts. Enthusiasts are looking to be entertained as well as informed and this book does very little entertaining. I found my self reading parts of the book over the course of several months. It just wasn't the page-turner that some other visual treats like "High Score" were. All in all it was worth 13 bucks, however I liken it too a History book on the 20th Century, with key events missing like World War II! Sega is not even mentioned as a footnote! Phantasy Star, Shining Force and several other important events in Gaming History never even captured the interest of the author, and it painfully shows here. Three Stars.
narrow scope, but an interesting read. .......2006-04-12
other people have commented thoroughly about the generalities of this book, and i by-and-large agree. i'd like to add, however, that some of the most interesting parts of this book are the omissions.
for example, they author segues straight from talking about Ninja Gaiden to NOJ/NOA's localization process and standards for content. he mentions that religious iconography, drug use, etc, are all prohibited from being portrayed in Nintendo software, and the list of prohibited content includes cigarette smoking.
the author fails to note the irony, however, that in the aforementioned game there's a bad guy leaning against a light post smoking a cigarette he throws aside before dashing at you. i can only assume it slipped past the censors without them catching it, but my friends and i had noticed it years ago and marvelled that it had been made it through the review process intact.
it's these kinds of things that make me feel like this book is a good general source, but anything deeper than a surface look at the topics covered would require some additional reading/sources.
there are quite a few nuggets of interesting trivia in here - more than enough to make a gamer smile (dragon quest being legally prohibited in Japan from selling on any day except Sunday or a holiday, for example). my copy was a gift; i can attest that it makes a fine one.
Too short and too shallow, but basically worthwhile.......2005-09-14
I enjoyed this book, mostly. Within its scattershot set of chapters about Japanese games in general, there's a fascinating, albeit sketchy, history of Nintendo that contained many small revelations for me, despite that I've been playing video games incessantly since 1987 or so. But the rest of the material was less compelling for me. The chapter about music games and music in games actively frustrated me--it gave only a brief survey of either topic, and seemed to spend most of its words on a tedious, obsessive examination of Final Fantasy albums. A chapter about Akihabara, Japan's premier consumer electronics marketplace, pushed the trivia-to-insight ratio similarly high. In his effort to treat video games as if they deserve the attention of artists, Kohler concentrates too much on material that is only interesting to fans.
Still, on the whole I'm glad I read this book, and I hope Kohler's stated desire to encourage further such works is satisfied; there is clearly much more to say.
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Honoring the Customer: Marketing and Selling to the Japanese
Robert M. March
Manufacturer: John Wiley & Sons Inc
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Customer Reviews:
Useless.......2007-09-02
This book should be given away as a promotional item. It is completely one sided and without much insight information. After reading it you know as much as before. It might be a good read for the Luis Vuiton zombies in Japan. For a business reader it is useless!
Interesting.......2007-01-10
One of the most interesting books on fashion I have ever read. Marketing, sales and business aspects on how the brand expanded in Japan told by an insider. Read it!
A lessons in intrenationalism. .......2005-12-20
This is a good read for anyone interested in Japanese culture. However, the real benefit of this book is that it gives a step by step layout for addressing marketing problems in Japan. Mr. Hata's solutions are clearly Japanese in origin but giving people good value and pride of ownership is good business anywhere, not just in Japan.
Finally, How Luxury Brands Work in Japan Demystified.......2005-05-11
This is a must read for all marketers who are interested in Japan and Asia market. Hata-san clearly and succinctively told a great story about how the enviable success of LV in Japan came about. The story is being told as is with an elegant writing style. Hata-san's own personality came through, what a gentleman and a great leader! A great, easy read. All the self-professed marketing gurus who write those fancy, incomprehensible books, take note here! This book does not preach..it explains. The only regret is that I wish there were more pictures. Arigato-gozaimasu Hata-san.
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The New Competition
Philip Kotler ,
Liam Fahey , and
Somkid Jatusripitak
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall Trade
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Book Description
Literally, the form and order of doing things in Japan, kata" is the cultural conditioning that causes the Japanese to think and react in the way they do. The secret to understanding Japanese business, culture, and society is explained by this cultural framework upon which Japanese behavior and etiquette is built. Veteran Japanologist Boye Lafayette De Mente explains the concept of kata and offers the reader insight to the art of bowing, the importance of apology, the origin of the Japanese obsession for quality, and other key cultural ideas which, when mastered, unlock the mystery of Japanese professional and social interaction. The book contains more than 70 brief essays that detail the origin, nature, use, and influence of kata. Whether you are interested in a deeper understanding of Japanese culture or looking for a way to develop business strategy, Kata is an invaluable resource."
Customer Reviews:
One step closer to understanding........2004-05-23
Lafayette's revealing book is a survival manual for those who might feel lost at the unfathomable task of understanding the Japanese culture. The book focuses on the obstacles encountered in everyday life and business affairs, by almost every culture in the World when dealing with the japanese. It explains with first-hand experience how the culture has been changed and influenced by the Kata applied to every task from the art of Chado (or tea ceremony) to the miniturization of electronics, thus making the japanese such a unique culture. This book is a delight to read because of its objetivity and sociological insight. It is not a travel guide, it is a great work of cultural and sociological study.
Book Description
Now in paperback, the inside story of the cartoon kitty that became a multibillion-dollar global enterprise
The only business book to offer an in-depth exploration of the Hello Kitty phenomenon, Hello Kitty tells the amazing story of how the Japanese company Sanrio bucked the odds and transformed a bulbous, all-but-featureless cartoon critter into a multibillion-dollar global business powerhouse. Readers will learn how and why the Hello Kitty brand clicked with children and adults, across cultures, and how it continues to successfully compete, internationally, with Disney and Warner Brothers. This book is packed with valuable lessons about the awesome power of branding, marketing, and licensing to capture the hearts and minds of consumers.
Ken Belson (Tokyo, Japan) covers Japanese business, economics, and government policy for the New York Times. His work has also appeared in BusinessWeek, Fortune, Bloomberg News, the International Herald Tribune, and Barron's, among others. Brian Bremner (Tokyo, Japan) currently serves as Asia Economics Editor for BusinessWeek and writes a weekly column called "Eye on Japan" for BusinessWeek Online.
Customer Reviews:
The Story of Hello Kitty.......2006-07-03
If you are a Hello Kitty fan you might want to know more about how it all got started. Sometimes repetitious, but still fun to read if you are a Hello Kitty fan, this book provides tons of information about Sanrio and Hello Kitty and her makers. It is an interesting story. Did you know Bill Gates tried to buy the copywrite to Hello Kitty? A fun read. Good for summer relaxing or rainy days in a blanket. It will make you love Kitty White even more (if that is possible!)!
Not in depth enough and no really unifying thread.......2005-04-20
I think the authors were writing this to be used as a textbook for a business class. There was no message beyond Hello Kitty is sucessful. Yeah, I figured that out from the title. Additionally, many details were repeated in multiple chapters. Overall there was no unifying thread from the authors. They didn't tell us their interpretation of why Hello Kitty was successful or how it came to be in their opinion. It was interesting but not earth shattering.
Great concept - poorly written........2005-01-09
I am a huge fan of the Sanrio company and everything it creates and I received this book for Christmas. The writing style is typical of a high school student's book report. The same facts are repeated over and over, making half the book seem like filler. The same numbers and figures and statements are constantly repeated. In short, the book could have been about 30 pages long without the filler.
It backtracks a lot also. It feels like every chapter is written by a new writer who was told to research Hello Kitty (like I said, it repeats). I wish it would have had a more linear style, from beginning to end.
The facts are very interesting though, and learning about the creator was also a nice treat.
comprehensive... almost.......2004-09-27
This book was recommended by a friend who has extensive experience in the consumer goods industry. It was an interesting read, as I'm a fan of Hello Kitty as well as a business school graduate. The authors do a good job of explaining a lot of the background regarding how Sanrio got to where it is today.
One of the things I hoped this book would answer is the question of why Sanrio would distribute its products through a mass retailer like Target. It never even came close to this issue; I'm still curious to know Sanrio's strategy with Target.
I agree with Tristan Beaulieu that the later chapters begin to repeat content from earlier chapters. I'm not sure if this is because it was written by two authors and simply wasn't integrated well enough. Also, some of the earlier chapters refer to vignettes coming later in the book, but it turns out to be a letdown when most of the story has already been revealed by its earlier reference.
HELLO KITTY.......2004-04-13
It?s so easy to trivialize the significance of Hello Kitty?s simple iconic image. But here the authors have skillfully drafted a book that deconstructs the appeal of this cross-cultural phenomenon and the behind-the-scenes machinations of its hugely successful marketing and merchandising.
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Winning in Asia, Japanese Style
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
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| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
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ASIN: 0312239106 |
Book Description
Despite the regional currency crisis of 1997-1998, Asia-Pacific economies continue to be among the most attractive markets in the world. Japanese, American, and European firms have invested heavily in the past decades, and now are positioning themselves to take advantage of the post-Asian recovery, phenomenal Chinese growth rates, and deepening economic liberalization. This pathbreaking work focuses on understanding the market and nonmarket strategies employed by Japanese firms to boost their share of the developing Asian market and to rally the Japanese government in support of their initiatives. In addition to advancing a novel theoretical framework to analyze strategy, the book contains an overview chapter focuses on Japanese investment and trade trends in Asia and original case studies of the banking, automobile, telecommunications, chemical, software, and electronics sectors that provide insight into winning strategies in Asia.
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Pikachu's Global Adventure: The Rise and Fall of Pokémon
Manufacturer: Duke University Press
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Similar Items:
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Millennial Monsters: Japanese Toys and the Global Imagination (Asia: Local Studies / Global Themes)
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Power-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life
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Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture
ASIN: 0822332876 |
Book Description
Initially developed in Japan by Nintendo as a computer game, Pokémon swept the globe in the late 1990s. Based on a narrative in which a group of children capture, train, and do battle with over a hundred imaginary creatures, Pokémon quickly diversified into an array of popular products including comic books, a TV show, movies, trading cards, stickers, toys, and clothing. Pokémon eventually became the top grossing children's product of all time. Yet the phenomenon fizzled as quickly as it had ignited. By 2002, the Pokémon craze was mostly over. Pikachu’s Global Adventure describes the spectacular, complex, and unpredictable rise and fall of Pokémon in countries around the world.
In analyzing the popularity of Pokémon, this innovative volume addresses core debates about the globalization of popular culture and about children’s consumption of mass-produced culture. Topics explored include the origins of Pokémon in Japan’s valorization of cuteness and traditions of insect collecting and anime; the efforts of Japanese producers and American marketers to localize it for foreign markets by muting its sex, violence, moral ambiguity, and general feeling of Japaneseness; debates about children’s vulnerability versus agency as consumers; and the contentious question of Pokémon’s educational value and place in school. The contributors include teachers as well as scholars from the fields of anthropology, media studies, sociology, and education. Tracking the reception of Pokémon in Japan, the United States, Great Britain, France, and Israel, they emphasize its significance as the first Japanese cultural product to enjoy substantial worldwide success and challenge western dominance in the global production and circulation of cultural goods.
Contributors. Anne Allison, Linda-Renée Bloch, Helen Bromley, Gilles Brougere, David Buckingham, Koichi Iwabuchi, Hirofumi Katsuno, Dafna Lemish, Jeffrey Maret, Julian Sefton-Green, Joseph Tobin, Samuel Tobin, Rebekah Willet, Christine Yano
Customer Reviews:
Great book.......2006-03-31
The previous reviewer must have been brain dead herself when she read the book. There is no other way she could have so completely misread this text. The authors are not opponents of Pokemon -- as if that was even the point. In excerpting the statements from Tobin about the "evil" empire of Pokemon, she completely misquotes him. He CLEARLY argues in his introduction that this represents one of the perspectives on Pokemon and then goes on to lay out other perspectives. In the chapter about anti-Pokemon websites, the author is describing the discourse of these websites, not advocating for them. In fact, the author describes these as "moral panics". A moral panic is a misplaced fear that sweeps a society. If this reviewer knew anything at all about the scholarship of the people represented in this book or about the language of cultural studies, she would realize that her reading of them as children's pop culture haters is absurd. I DO use chapters from this book in my children's media studies class exactly because it represents thoughtful and sophisticated scholarship. To look at the complicated ways the Pokemon as one representative of children's popular culture circulates both as part of the global economy and as part of the childhood identity economy, I recommend this book.
Average customer rating:
- Not too many new lessons for me
- Highly recommended
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Relentless: The Japanese Way of Marketing
Johny K. Johansson , and
Ikujiro Nonaka
Manufacturer: HarperBusiness
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0887308600 |
Book Description
No one ever heard of Lexus until it all but ran Mercedes off the road. Whether it's with cars or cameras, Sega games or Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, the Japanese seem to conquer every market they decide to target, often leaving American businessmen shaking their heads and wondering how they did it.
Relentless offers readers unique access to the Japanese mind to show how their perception of the marketing process differs from that of the Western business mind set. Explaining how they define marketing, what the roles of the buyer and the seller are, what customer satisfaction really means and what a long-term relationship requires, it draws fascinating comparisons between Western and Eastern marketing goals, techniques and underlying beliefs. Most important, Relentless provides American business leaders with the detailed advice they need on how to counteract these Japanese strategies as they do battle in the war for market share.
Customer Reviews:
Not too many new lessons for me.......1999-12-08
Overall, I found this book didn't provide new lessons for me.
I think the reason why I felt unsatisfied is because I've contacted with Japanese culture quite often already; therefore, all those Japanese culture and working philosophy are familiar to me. As now I'm in Taiwan, actually I almost watch Japanese TV program everyday. Many of the programs introduced how Japanese conduct their business - from reviving a dying resturant to developing a winning lunch box for the train, so it's not new.
The subtitle is 'The Japanese way of Marketing'; yet the better subtitle could be 'The Japanese way of Doing business', as the author talk about the total aspects of doing business. Personally I do appreciate the dedication of many Japanese to their work, no matter you're a business man or a cook in a small resturant. The core essence is 'detail matters', 'execution matters'. Still, this is not new to me.
For marketing side, though the author explained 4 P's one by one, I couldn't find something new and I couldn't find something can quickly apply to different culture context, i.e. Taiwan. Then this book looks like a pretty good guide if you're a foreigner and want to do business in Japan. Yet if you want to apply to your own country and context, you need to put lots of effort to adapt it yourself as the author didn't tell you how.
Net, I found this book provided few lessons to me, and didn't provide clear method on how to apply the Japanese way to different culture/context. Yet I still recommend it to the business people who are not familiar with Japanese culture/working philosophy, or if you're going to be assigned to Japan.
Highly recommended.......1999-11-28
RELENTLESS is one of the better books I've read on Japanese marketing techniques and strategy. I highly recommend it for its inside perspective. As a Haas alumni, I noted that both authors, Professors Johansson and Nonaka, attended Berkeley.
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