 
Vol.26 : Russell Willis (eigoTown.com Limited)
August 29, 2007
Volatile markets make early rate hike uncertain
Power crunch forces factory shutdowns
Ultrathin TV sets new standard
New technologies keep hearts beating
Expanded coverage: Asians offer fresh perspectives
dot com bubble：インターネット関連企業のバブル
angel financing：主にベンチャービジネス等への個人投資家による経済支援
viable business：存続可能なビジネス
（ R: Russell, P: Peter ）
| P : |
How long has eigoTown been around? |
| R : |
eigoTown was launched in June 2000, so it's been around now for about seven years. It was launched in the dot com bubble days and we set out to be the largest portal site for everything to do with English in Japan for Japanese people.
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| R : |
We had our ups and downs. You know, as a dot com bubble company, we were set up with venture capital or angel financing actually, and we marched ahead and spent lots of money and we were looking for a second round of investment at the time, as most internet companies like us were doing, and that was part of the business plan. And that finally fell through and left us in a very, very difficult situation in about 2001, where things looked really rather bleak.
But at the time the decision was: is eigoTown a viable business, is it something that's worthwhile doing? And I thought, well yes I think there is a place for a destination site or a portal site that has all of the information that someone interested in the English language or English language-speaking culture would want to go to. And I think that we can do something that's both positive in terms of making a beneficial difference to the world and can make money and reward its investors and shareholders.
So, we decided to go carry on and over the last few years since then, I think we've been able to build up a site that everyone can be very, very proud of and we know that many, many people come to eigoTown, hundreds of thousands of people come to eigoTown and rely upon it for entertainment, information, education, and community; so we are very happy about that.
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| P : |
Perhaps you could just go into a little bit of detail for people who are not aware of the site yet, about some of the things that you do at the eigoTown site. |
| R : |
Sure. So, eigoTown is divided into a number of different sections. One section is called eigoCollege. And so for example there you can go and do daily online lessons for TOEIC at the different levels, for Eiken at different levels, for Business English, Business Vocabulary...
Within that section also there are a number of articles and information that are produced by authors, some from America, some from Japan, on subjects ranging from understanding "The West Wing" to new words that have become current in English.
|
| P : |
And this is all free, right? |
| R : |
And this is all provided free and it's paid for by advertising. So companies that are selling products related perhaps to TOEIC or to "The West Wing" or to other areas will advertise within it. So eigoCollege, for example is one of our sections and there is a lot more to it than that, but other sections include Ryugaku Plaza, which is all about studying abroad.
So, if you are interested in studying abroad in America or Britain or any other English-speaking country, there is a whole range of information there which will provide you information about specific courses that you can take at universities, at colleges, all of the stuff that you need to know about. For example, with home-stays and safety regulations, and how different the toilets are in America or Britain, or the parking regulations.
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| R : |
I mean it is a huge section. If you were to put eigoTown into a book, it would probably be over 10,000 pages long. There is a massive amount of reference about that.
So within Ryugaku Plaza alone we have country guides, which are not related to any particular courses, but country guides which, if you are planning to be a student in Britain or Ireland or Canada or America, this is what you need to know. And so obviously that's a useful and very comprehensive reference section that people use. So, Ryugaku Plaza was another section.
Another section is our BBS section where people who are interested in English can come together and discuss things. We have a Study Abroad expert within that section who you can just ask questions and he will, as an expert living abroad in Australia and having some experience studying abroad, can tell you all the things that you need to know, and try and help you with any worries or concerns that you might have.
And obviously people get together and discuss other issues about the meaning of words or places to go or difficulties or problems that they have, or share opportunities that they want other people to be aware of. So, the BBS section is another.
We have a great jobs section, so if you are looking to find a job where you can use your English, this is the place, and it will tell you everything from how to behave in an interview, how to write your resume, cultural differences between working in a Japanese company and perhaps a western company, and a whole range of, again, sort of reference information that you might need to know, as well as a list of specific jobs that you can apply for in getting that job of your dreams. And so the Eigo Job section is very popular.
So, we have a number of different sections. Others include: for Japanese English teachers, for translators, for interpreters. We have a great podcast section of which this is one, with the Nikkei Weekly, Time Magazine, 'eigono hint' soap opera drama. We have fairy tales, we have a big blog section with Pakkun Makkun from NHK, with Hiroko Graves and other celebrities and a number of other different people.
So, really, I mean that's the thing about eigoTown. Ask me to describe it, we'll use up all of our time.
|
| R : |
It's absolutely massive, it's comprehensive and that's why I think almost anyone who is aware of what's out there knows that eigoTown is the place to go if you are interested in English and you are Japanese.
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| P : |
Excellent. And when you set this up, I mean you'd already been in Japan for a few years. |
| P : |
For you yourself, I mean I know you speak a certain amount of Japanese, but basically you are an English speaker. |
fanzines：ファンの作品を掲載した専門誌（同人誌）
desktop publishing：コンピューターを用いた出版の一連の作業
speech recognition：音声認識
red tape：官僚的形式主義
（ R: Russell, P: Peter ）
| P : |
What were the main hurdles for you in creating a company which gives a lot of information about the English-speaking world, but gives it in Japanese?
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| R : |
Right. Well, I think when I came to Japan, I must have been a bit crazy I think, because I don't know what possessed me to imagine that I could set up companies in a foreign country when I didn't speak the language.
And I think it was because I'd always been involved in publishing and ever since I was 15, I'd been creating tourist guides for my local town and printing out 50,000 copies which were funded by advertising by the local fish and chips shop, and the pub, and the Bleak House museum and what have you.
And basically going around, sort of, signing people up, then they'd give me the money, I'd pretend that I was just working for someone else - instead I was actually just working for myself. At the same time - because I was too young you see, they wouldn't trust me if they thought that I was doing it by myself. And I was doing that then, and I had my first meishi at the age of 15. Bradstow Publications with a picture of Mr. Pickwick on it from Charles Dickens there.
And I was also publishing fanzines about, sort of, modern adult comics, adult in the sense that they were serious rather than superhero or funny animal characters. And a lot of the - when I was around the age of fifteen, sixteen, a lot of those who are now sort of almost world famous comic book writers, graphic novelists, were sort of friends of mine and wrote for the fanzines that I produced, from Alan Moore who did 'Watchman' and 'From Hell' and various other classic graphic novels.
Warren Ellis who is a science fiction comic book writer, David Lloyd who is a famous artist, Steve Dillon. Anyone in the comics world would know these names. And so it was an amazing experience doing that and for various reasons I sort of lessened my activity in that world and when I was at college I was publishing student union magazines and handbooks.
So, when I was in Japan, all I was about was publishing stuff. And so having decided to stay in Japan, I realized that I needed to do this in some form and I became familiar with interactive multimedia on computers through the Mac. I'd used the Mac for desktop publishing, which was, you know, laying out pages of magazines in Pagemaker and QuarkXpress. But it was the interactive capabilities to make multimedia software that fascinated me.
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| P : |
I remember when I'd first met you, you were developing software for speech recognition.
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| R : |
That's right. We were demonstrating at a conference and I think the classic one we had was a gorilla, I believe, sitting in the jungle and when you would say 'pick a grape' and he'd pick a grape, or 'eat a banana' and he would eat a banana. Or I think we had one which was 'vanish' and he'd disappear.
And, yeah that was fantastic stuff that was based on speech recognition technology provided by Apple at the time. And that was very popular, and you were involved in one of the CD-Roms that we did for that.
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| R : |
And we had an interview with you and so you would ask me to choose one of a menu of questions and you'd hear the question and then you would pop up and answer the question. So that was one way; or you would just - the speech recognition part was you would just say "So where are you from Peter?" or something like this and you would pop up and answer.
So yes, speech and we did CD-Roms, we did the British UK '98 Festival. We worked with MacMillan to do a very well regarded children's CCD-Rom. You could buy the CD-Rom in T-Zone, in Laox, Dai-ichi Kaden, all of the retail shops (some of them aren't around anymore) at the time.
But it was at the end of the 90's - 1999 - that we realized that one of the key problems with the distribution of CD-Rom software was the distribution, Softbank controlled it and if you didn't have enough money to get shelf space and proper, sort of, reordering from shops when they sold the product, it was very, very difficult to have a bestseller.
And so the internet seemed like an opportunity to bring an audience to us and then we would be able to sell things to that audience. And so one of the reasons eigoTown was set up was partly that model, so, you know, if you've got hundreds of thousands of people coming to your website every month, then there is stuff that you can sell them.
And we do sell eigoTown products, we've just launched our eigoTown 'Inside Guide' the first topic of which is Harry Potter. And we've had a number of CD-Roms that we've sold, but of course our main business is advertising focused. And so a lot of advertisers who want to reach our audience spend fairly considerable sums of money to reach that audience through our web pages, through our newsletters and other means.
So yeah, so why did I do it, was it a problem? Yes, I was crazy to do it.
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| P : |
But it has worked out. |
| R : |
But it has worked out yes, yes. So, I think it was the arrogance and stupidity of youth that made me do it and pushed me forward. But I think if I were to do it again, I'd certainly say, I would do what you did, study Japanese for four years in college or something.
And then to try and set up a company would be a lot easier because - not so much from the red tape of setting up a company per se, but in terms of being able to understand what's going on around you and really get a sense of what's popular or where the market trends are going.
And also just in terms of networking, when you need to network with people who don't speak English and your Japanese isn't quite good enough to make that kind of bond that you might want to.
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| P : |
Do you have any particular directions where you do want to build eigoTown from here on? I mean I know you said you've just published your first book. I mean, do you want to become a major book publisher, for example? |
| R : |
Well, I think one of our models is that yes, we want people to come to eigoTown, we want to make money out of people advertising to those people through eigoTown. But certainly yes, we want to have a number of publications and products; so books, our own - becoming eigoTown as a publisher is one way that we can see that happening.
The other is publishing software, publishing DVDs, continuing to publish interactive materials, whether they'd CD-Rom based or DVD based or online or most likely a combination of the two where you get a book with something and then there is also an online component.
So, eigoTown as a publisher of products or a provider of services rather than just a place to advertise is the next step for us I think. Now, of course, there is an issue there of competing with our own customers in terms of our - we'll have advertisers who would then become - we'd become competitors of theirs, but we'll be very careful about that to make sure that that doesn't adversely affect us too much.
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| P : |
So, you've just started publishing books. Are you selling the books in bookshops or are you selling them yourself or how does it work? |
| R : |
Well, the books are being sold in bookshops and they are being distributed through various distributors in Japan. But also we have our own bookstore now called eigoStore, which is designed to sell western published books; "Da Vinci Code", "Harry Potter", any kind of book like that that you might find in a bookstore here in Japan which is in English, and we've partnered with Yohan to provide those books. We have about 15,000 books in stock at any one time. |
| P : |
Excuse me, why would you get into a business that's as competitive as that when there are people like Amazon around? |
| R : |
Good question. I think because we looked at the competitive landscape and we realized that Amazon is not really doing as good a job as it could be, especially in that area of western books and Japanese published books about learning English. And we think that we can we can do a better job of providing a better user experience and also certainly with the Japanese published books, there wouldn't be an issue of price because discounting isn't actually allowed in Japan, so you can't discount Japanese published books.
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| R : |
You can with western books. But interestingly enough, many of the books that we sell - western books that we sell on our site are actually cheaper than you can buy on Amazon. So, for us, we know, obviously we are not going to be able to be anywhere near the size of Amazon and it's just - that would be impossible. But we can, you know, there is a nice bit of pie there and we'd like a nice slice of it.
And I think because eigoTown does have a relatively loyal large and regular readership, we can bring those people over once they see that eigoStore is a better experience to buy books and other products, so we'll have western books, we can have Japanese published books about learning English but also be selling other sorts of CD-Roms and electronic dictionaries, these kind of products.
Well, it is nicer space to play in, if you like. You know, you've just got a more - you know, there's more selections of different things on different themes. Someone cares about this area, whereas unfortunately a number of the other bookshops around don't seem to care very much about making their spaces nice for their customers, and that's what we are going to do. And so yeah, we are looking forward to that developing.
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| P : |
Are you a Nikkei Weekly reader? |
| R : |
Absolutely. I mean I would be at sea without the Nikkei Weekly. I started reading it when I first came to Japan and it's just a fascinating newspaper. If you are interested in business and market trends and demographics and society as a whole, then this has a really interesting slice of it. Everything from, sort of, in depth articles on the way in which certain businesses are behaving, just to 'these are the new crazy products that are being put out this week'. I think the Nikkei Weekly is vital for any businessperson, newfound businessperson certainly in Japan. It makes you sound clever if you read it, you know, and there is always a market for that.
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Vol.25 : Alain Wenckebach (PTS Consulting Japan K.K.)
August 22, 2007
Sharp rise in yen threatens expected profit growth
Japan firms step up India investment
Back to school for engineers
Low-octane economy slows to a crawl
Expanded coverage: Social entrepreneurs gain cred
body shopping：専門家やチームを（プロジェクト等に）配属すること
KPI：主要業績評価指標
deregulation：自由化
auxiliary equipment：補助装置設備
（ A: Alain, T: Terri ）
| T : |
So, now we are going to get to the meat of PTS K.K. How would you describe what you do? |
| A : |
Okay. So, obviously in the first 5 years, we've developed heavily the consulting and project management on the IT, okay...
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| A : |
...and primarily related to infrastructure...
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| T : |
Okay, still related to infrastructure. |
| A : |
There was lot of work and we did all the major - a lot of the major relocations here in Tokyo, but primarily for the foreign financial...
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| A : |
In parallel to that, we were trying to develop sort of a lower fee, but more constant sort of income, which we call Managed Services, and the idea being that you know chunks of the businesses be outsourced to PTS, like a helpdesk or portion of the IT - there is always a fine line between, you know, body shopping and providing a true managed service.
And I think it's only probably the last couple of years where we are entering truly complete outsource solution where the client binds us with a service level agreement...
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| A : |
...with KPIs and so on.
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| A : |
Key Performance Indicators to see how we're performing as an outsource, okay. |
| T : |
I see. It's like milestones to check if things... |
| A : |
Yeah, I mean, for instance that we are effectively able to provide reduction of cost, we are... |
| A : |
...running efficiently, that their own internal staff are happy with our services or there is a grading or a measure of what we provide.
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| A : |
So - but that's fundamentally different from the consulting/project management...
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| A : |
And so for us, as being signed from two people to, you know...
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| T : |
Yeah, I was going to get to that. |
| A : |
...being a 140 staff now. We'll be flirting with some of the bigger competitors that have been out there.
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| A : |
But they tend to operate it more on a global scale.
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| A : |
And funny enough, they also have the same challenges as we have to penetrate Japan. Japan has always been a bit of a peculiar market...
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| T : |
Why would you say that? |
| A : |
Strong bonds between vendors and customers that was one very stable economy in the old days, but now it's rocking, so....
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| A : |
...people are looking more closely to the cost and hence they, you know, they rely more on external consultants to look at their business.
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| A : |
Now, we are entering maybe a second phase where some of these financial industries are striving to be well established and there's more deregulation in Japan. So, in a way these operators are striving to operate the same way as they operate back in the US or...
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| T : |
I am much more clear... |
| T : |
...and you have a great way of making it clear, but one thing that I was trying to sort of figure out... the Data Centers. |
| T : |
So, what you have is large organizations that have lots of - any type of - can you give a little background on that? |
| A : |
Okay, so - okay, that's a good one. If you look at the infrastructure that typically existed in the - within our various customers, if you take 10 years ago...
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| A : |
...were usually within the bank itself.
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| A : |
Okay. And obviously as the IT has grown the real estate occupied by the Data Center was getting bigger and bigger.
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| A : |
But we have a big Data Center in the center of Tokyo. It's a very costly exercise, yeah.
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| T : |
I can't even imagine. |
| A : |
The real estate is hugely expensive.
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| A : |
At the same time, the phenomenon of IT with the high density equipment, very power consuming.
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| A : |
Not only the Data Center, but the auxiliary equipment like the mechanical and electrical to support that grew even faster. So, there was a strong push to take all this equipment and transfer them into Data Centers, which are, you know, on the outskirts of Tokyo.
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| A : |
But still within a reasonable distance...
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| A : |
...because there is all sort of technology problems like latency...
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| A : |
...and that shouldn't be too far...
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| T : |
There shouldn't be a lag in... |
| A : |
...yeah. Exactly. Maybe there are second tiers - equipment that could be very far, but maybe you can then put them in Singapore or China, who knows, yeah.
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| A : |
So, we - at that time I felt that these Data Centers, which are part of our consulting because, you know, we were consulting on infrastructure, as I mentioned.
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| A : |
The technology where we were in IT, lacked the know-how of the other side, the Mechanical and Electrical, and they are very tightly connected.
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| A : |
If I can give you a simple example...
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| A : |
...is if you stack the rack with full of equipment, well, it will need a certain cooling capacity, yeah.
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| A : |
But sometimes these matrices were not fully in-tune with the people supporting the Data Centers, so I am saying the IT might stack up to...
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| A : |
...to a maximum racks and...
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| T : |
And then blow everything. |
| A : |
Exactly. So - and the technology itself became a very dense...
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| A : |
...servers producing more and more heat, okay.
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ITPM：IT プロジェクトマネジメント
M&E：製造エンジニアリング (Manufacturing and Engineering)
（ A: Alain, T: Terri ）
| A : |
So, what used to be traditional designs are now falling apart because most of the Data Centers here which have a certain legacy maybe 5 years or 10 years, they all have a - they all suffer a problem of heat or hotspots, as they call them, and so on.
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| A : |
So, the whole integration of the design made it quite a challenge. So, what we did in Tokyo with PTS, we started to develop a Mechanical and Electrical arm with true mechanical and electrical engineers that would work very tightly with the IT... |
| A : |
...and produce, you know best design and best practice for these Data Centers.
So, we did that on the sort of IT/infrastructure environment and I think we had also the same issue on the IT project management and...
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| T : |
Right. Tell me more about that.
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| A : |
...we - and construction project management, yeah.
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| A : |
Okay. There again our ITPM...
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| A : |
...usually is plugged in a bigger program...
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| A : |
...which is usually when - when I first came to Japan by the architects, okay. |
| A : |
Nowadays they are run by more specialist companies that focus on probably program management or construction project management.
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| T : |
Also specifically for that. |
| A : |
The IT still plugs in somewhere underneath, yeah.
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| A : |
So, we had quite a few situations where we were in large projects...
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| A : |
...where the IT scheduling was not fully embraced or given the decent, you know, allocation of time and so on...
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| A : |
...especially because construction firm didn't understand fully the impact of IT...
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| A : |
...nor its importance.
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| A : |
Okay, but if you look at the relocation project today, sometimes the IT approach is 40% of the whole budget, so it's quite a significant number. So, saying that we took the approach that we think that in project management there is a generic project management, you know, process and ways of doing things and then there are specialist areas, would be construction and IT. So, we are trying to enfold the whole thing.
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| T : |
So, it's like you create - is this right, you create sort of a backbone of... |
| T : |
...Project Management. |
| T : |
Good Project Management practice is X, then plug in your construction and your IT. |
| A : |
Completely, exactly.
So, that sort of summarized the Project Management and the consulting area...
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| A : |
...in how we went to consolidate the ITPM and the construction PM and on the other side...
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| A : |
...of infrastructure, the M&E and the IT as well.
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| A : |
In the center, you have this managed service...
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| A : |
...as we discussed, which still takes about 40% of our business now...
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| A : |
...in terms of revenue, yeah. And the last 10%, we are trying to take off the ground a Management Consulting practice.
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| T : |
...in terms of the same area or... |
| A : |
Yeah, so the idea that the management consulting will venture in areas quite different from...
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| A : |
...what we traditionally do.
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| A : |
For example, business process reengineering, okay.
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| A : |
Some cases where a company wants to review how they manage the whole firm and so on. The idea there that, you know, we will put in very specialized consultants - people that have been accustomed to operate in ways that - McKinsey style or, you know...
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| A : |
...this kind of bigger consulting firms.
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| A : |
And ultimately these projects should have a rainfall effect on the other practices that we have...
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| A : |
...in the firm, okay.
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| A : |
So, it's sort of a balance where we've already had projects running...
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| A : |
...and we have good hope that this will grow in the future.
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| T : |
And I have to go to the last question, which is, what if any is your experience with 'The Nikkei Weekly?' |
| A : |
Well, actually we had - recently we had a salesperson that was using 'The Nikkei Weekly' as a sort of, you know informant for leads...
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| A : |
We've seen some good information, which I think one has led to a prospect, to a customer.
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 Russell Willis / President
eigoTown.com 
Vol.24 : Dr. Niall P. Murphy, Ph.D. (RIKEN Brain Science Institute)
August 8, 2007
Fate of reforms up in the air after LDP's election defeat
Land price rise spreads to local centers
Sharp unveils big LCD plans
Accounting rules to fall in line by 2011
Expanded coverage: Popular psychics offer peace of mind for vulnerable,
thin-skinned populace
mental disorders：精神障害
addiction：依存症
subjective feelings：主観的感情
neurons：神経細胞
（ N: Niall, T: Terri ）
| T : |
What in the world does in your lab do? |
| N : |
My lab works essentially on the study of what mental disorders, but especially disorders that are related to feelings, mood and emotion; and primarily the one that we are most interested in is addictions of various type, whether they are drug addiction or food addiction. But we are also interested in any mental disorder where there is a change in moods; so, for example, a very good example of that, say, is depression, where there is a long-term...
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| N : |
...change in mood, a depressed mood.
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| T : |
Right. I see. So, you're studying the reason or you're studying how the brain manifests depression, for example, or ... |
| N : |
Manifest or express and perhaps yes, we are very interested to know how feelings and emotions arise in the brain or wherever they do arise. Some people may argue that they actually arise in the body also.
We are interested in what the subjective feelings are, how they come about, how they change under normal circumstances and particularly how they change in certain of these disorders such as depression and addiction.
Of course, getting at the heart of a very complex thing of an emotion or a feeling can be very difficult, but primarily what we are trying to understand is how - what areas of the brain produce these so-called feelings. What types of neurons in the brain do that, and perhaps what these feelings are for?
I mean, we may know why, say, for example we feel good about something or we feel bad about something, but we question those things too, it's exactly what are these feelings for these emotions? Why do things make us happy, why do things make us sad?
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| T : |
Very, very good and concise way to explain it. Now, one of the things I read on the site was, you know, evolution has to do with this, so the survival mechanism. |
| N : |
That's right. Of course that's a whole different area of study is how, say, for example, emotion evolved over and over time and why did emotion evolve. So, for example, you could go out into your yard and look at an ant and you could probably point it and say, it doesn't have an emotion and it doesn't need an emotion. It got a very simple lot in life and it doesn't any particular emotion to be able to live and survive.
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| N : |
Now, as animals gets more and more complicated in their structure, is that probably the emotions develop more and more and more and we as humans probably, perhaps, arrogantly believe that we are the most emotional of all animals.
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| N : |
So the question is why have those emotions developed and what role do they play in our survival?
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| N : |
And how they develop is very, very fascinating, and perhaps how much more they develop in the future, perhaps they will...
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| N : |
...some people may even reason that they may even develop beyond certain other aspects in life and that may become a problem in itself.
And even if you look at different languages, for example, you just, say, compare...
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| N : |
...English and Japanese, we have different words for different feelings, say for example... |
| N : |
...in English we may say, we watched a movie... |
| N : |
...and I think, we would say, it was funny.
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| N : |
But a Japanese person might say it was a omoshiroii, it was interesting. And so sometimes you can get a blend of two different or at least maybe have different interpretations or how it is interpreted to different individuals.
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ingest：摂取する
expectations：期待
mingle：交流する
（ N: Niall, T: Terri ）
| N : |
Now, what happens with addiction is that although we don't fully understand it, but we are certainly getting closer is that we know that certain things you could just simply ingest. You could eat them, you could inject them, you could snort them, there is all sorts of ways of doing it.
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| N : |
These are chemical things, they go straight into the brain and they essentially fool the brain into thinking; thinking is not a great word, but fool the brain into giving you this sense of pleasure. And that's why you do it. |
| N : |
And so and of course if that happens then you are more likely probably to do it again. Of course, actually that's actually quite difficult to prove experimentally that people do things because they like them. They could maybe perhaps do it simply because there is some other mechanism in the brain that will make you repeat something that you should be repeating and you could do it without actually liking it. And, in fact, some people argue...
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| N : |
So rather like the ant we are talking about...
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| N : |
An ant, say, for example, if it finds something that it needs, it may find some sugary water, is that it will tend to return there over and over again. Now, you could look at the ant and say, well I don't think he is very happy by that, he has just learnt to go there, the behavior is becoming reinforced over and over again.
It is conceivably possible that that could actually happen in very sophisticated animals, like mammals and humans. In fact, some addiction researchers argue that. They say that the reason why in addiction is that we don't keep repeating this behavior that's very bad for us over and over again necessarily because we like the outcome.
It is just that we just want to do it more and more. Whereas other researchers argue that well actually we do like the outcome but the more that we like it the more the brain tries to adjust to this pleasure. And pushing, kind of, our pleasure state lower and lower, so we got to keep doing this behavior more and more to, kind of, get ourselves back to normal again.
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| N : |
It sounds very deep but the concepts are actually quite simple and sometimes it's worth reevaluating your own behavior, why do you do these things. And, say, for example, probably most of those have in our lives, we do something that we don't want to do or we feel like we shouldn't be doing it.
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| N : |
It could be, you know, should I that eat that third scoop of ice cream? Now you probably say, no, I shouldn't but I want to. |
| N : |
And then evaluate yourself after you got that third scoop of ice cream, how do you feel about it? Did it meet your expectations? And that's an important idea is that often in addiction is when people finally get what they want, it doesn't actually meet their expectations.
And so looking at it simply as like, we do things that we like is perhaps an oversimplification and it's something that's fascinating about this field, because you don't have to be a scientist. We have lots of expensive and fancy equipment; ask yourselves these very basic questions.
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| T : |
Differences between research conditions in Japan and other countries; you came here partially because of RIKEN, so perhaps you will tell us what happened in the UK, what's the difference? |
| N : |
Oh, the difference is between research... Well, of course, there's like a socio-economic differences, things like funding levels of course, but I don't think we really want to talk about that because I think perhaps what's most interesting to you and me too is the way people approach their science and approach things...
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| N : |
There are differences and in some senses we often joke is that Japan is a little bit, not old fashioned, but, kind of, old school, like we say, is that in Japan the Sensei-Gakusei, the relationship, the professor-student relationship is quite different I think. It's changing now, but to that, say, for example, in the US, and US, for example, it's very casual.
And the student doesn't really have very much fear of saying his ideas or perhaps even telling the professor is wrong at something. Of course, the way Japanese society is structured is that the student would have a bit more hesitation or certainly have to enshroud it in much softer words to get that point across.
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| T : |
But you feel it's changing a little bit? |
| N : |
It is changing, oh definitely. This thing about scientist is it is very international; scientists mingle a lot and so they see the way the other people do things. And then this way that people are approaching their science and one of the great things I like about Japan is that the public has a very strong interest in science.
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| N : |
They see science as a way to the future.
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Alain Wenckebach / Managing Director
PTS Consulting Japan K.K.
Vol.23 : Thomas Wedgwood (Waterford Wedgwood Japan Limited)
August 1, 2007
Electronics sector seeing waves of shake-ups
Nintendo success parallels Apple model
Opposites attract - even in retail
Seven & I adapts 'conbini' to America
Expanded coverage: Kadokawa joins Google in legit YouTube videos
humanity：人間性
abolishing the slave trade：奴隷取引を廃止すること
medallions：メダル型の宝飾品
creamware glaze：クリームウェアの釉薬
porcelain：磁器
celebrity endorsements：有名人によるお墨付き
anglophile：イギリスが好きな人
oxides：酸化物
bas reliefs：浅浮き彫り
stoneware：咋器（せっき）
（ T: Tom, P: Peter ）
| P : |
...You're the 8th generation of the Wedgwood family. |
| P : |
Dating back to your great, great, great, great, great, great, great... |
| T : |
Great grandfather in 1759.
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| T : |
Josiah Wedgwood, yes.
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| P : |
Okay. Tell us a little bit about Josiah because I have read a little bit about him and I have heard you speak about him and he is a very interesting character. |
| T : |
I think he was a very passionate person. First and foremost, he was passionate about humanity. He had a strong fondness for science. He had a strong fondness for business and pottery.
But I think a characteristic that is probably - that I hold dear and with Josiah is really in his passion for humanity, his passion to make the world a better place and especially in U.K. in the 18th century, no matter what he did in business or what he did as an artist, always his end objective was how can I make society a better place and...
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| P : |
He was in favor of abolishing the slave trade in the 18th century, wasn't he? |
| T : |
Absolutely and again this was quite remarkable as a businessman because it really didn't make much sense as a businessman then. A lot of things that Josiah did really went against the grain of his government at the time and of his patrons too, but he always stood fast in his beliefs.
And I think that, you know, that in itself, has been so integral into what our brand is today, you know. If we didn't have that sort of integrity of - or value, we probably wouldn't have lasted as long as we have...
But, yeah, you know, again Josiah - he really believed in fairness and even - going back when he was setting up his business, you know, he was one of the first people to set up a structured healthcare system, he was the first one to set standards...
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| T : |
...for employees, yes, which is - again in industrial England was very, very rare. And, you know, these are things that came from his personal beliefs and something like slave trade, you know, he looked at what resources that he would have to bring about the most amount of change and he used something - and at this time he was most noted for his jasper clay, and so it was very fashionable at the time, this was, you know, the neoclassical style was becoming very much predominant at that time period.
So he thought one of the best way I can bring awareness for the end of slavery is to make little jasper medallions, and again we could take something that's fashionable and really bring a strong message for change, yeah.
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| P : |
And he distributed those medallions to what kind of people? |
| T : |
He distributed to opinion leaders, to aristocrats, to politicians, and...
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| P : |
And they would wear the medallions? |
| T : |
...they would wear them or they would pin them on very much like we'd, you know, with AIDS we wear the ribbon on now with the bands that we wear.
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| T : |
This, I suppose, was one of the first times when it came - yeah, first time making a little badge to wear and he had a relationship with Benjamin Franklin, so he had sent these medallions over to Benjamin Franklin, again asked him can you pass these out to opinion leaders at the time or politicians and friends that you might know, yeah. |
| P : |
Okay. Let's get back to Wedgwood as a company. You talked about Josiah's jasper clay. |
| P : |
Was that the main innovation or what was the first big innovation with Wedgwood China? |
| T : |
It was actually a Queen's Ware - what we call 'Queen's Ware' today, which is a creamware glaze, and it's a bit interesting because in the - if you look at ceramic history, in the 18th century, most of ceramics was a copy of Chinese porcelain and there's a very distinct difference between the English pottery industry and Mainland European, where, you know, if you think of companies like Mycenae and what have you, a lot of them got their start by royal families going, you know, "This is gorgeous, this is beautiful stuff coming from China, let's make it." And it was - so the companies originated on patronages from the royal family.
And Josiah didn't want to do this. He thought there was an opportunity to create a uniquely English style. So he set about, well, how can we do something that feels as delicate as Chinese porcelain, but is completely different that is very much - belongs to us and he came up again using his science, a creamware pattern, and I think Josiah understood celebrity endorsements well before anyone else did because what he did is he took this and he sent it to Queen Charlotte, and Queen Charlotte fell in love with this creamware, and she goes, "Wow! This is something that's English. This is something that belongs to us."
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| T : |
And in the pottery industry in the U.K. everything was rather, you know, still stuck in baroque style and brown and - anyway Queen Charlotte fell in - not only did she fall in love with it, she also decided to rename it from what he was calling creamware to 'Queen's Ware' and made him Potter to Her Majesty. But the point is that we actually - we went out and through making a product that was unique; we were able to get the support of the royal family rather than having it outright.
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| T : |
And, you know, from that point on we've always had strong connection with royal families and his creamware - his first major success came with his creamware with a service made for Catherine the Great and...
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| T : |
Of Russia. And, you know, she was an anglophile and she was looking to make the largest dinner service in the world at that time with all hand-painted scenery of English countryside and most English potters wouldn't touch this. They thought there's an impossibility, there's no way you can make that - she was looking for roughly a 1,000 pieces or a 50-place setting - 50 person service.
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| P : |
Every single one hand painted... |
| T : |
Every single one hand painted with English countryside. And Josiah said, "No, we can do this." And in the process he set up a very efficient factory, you know, assembly line with hand painters, but he saw - he knew he wasn't going to make money on it, he saw it as a wonderful opportunity or sort of the perfect marketing tool. It was very nice to have the endorsement from Queen Charlotte, but if he can actually break into European market and have a dinner service with - along these lines of Catherine the Great.
So, he set up this assembly line, he decided that he would go to all the aristocrats, you know, in Georgian time people building these massive houses, and he went up to them, and he said, "Can I have the honor of painting your home on a plate for Catherine the Great. And, of course, everyone said, "Yeah, no, we would be delighted to."
And he finished the service, again, and ended up 944 pieces with 1,200 scenes of it - of England painted on it, finished it in about 9 months. Before he sent it to Catherine the Great, he put it on display in London, charged tickets for people to go and see this. And everyone was very excited. They wanted to go and see whose house was chosen, whose estate was chosen to be painted on this dinner service.
He got the aristocrats interested in his brand, interested in his products. And oddly enough, Queen Charlotte came strolling down to take a look at the service and she got quite jealous, you know, this is quite - this is much, much bigger than the tea service that you provided me.
And from that point on, we've - again we've established ourselves as being worthy of royalty with Catherine the Great and with UK royalty. But in the process of doing it, he set up such a efficient factory that he realized that he can actually manufacture this for the middle class - the upper middle class, which was growing, and he knew that's where he was going to make his money. Because we did - we almost lost money on the Catherine the Great service. But again the endorsement from it just, you know, it just absolutely boomed with the middle class afterwards. So that was his first major innovation.
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| P : |
Interesting.
At the risk of asking you a very stupid question, you mentioned jasper just now, I really don't know what jasper is, you're going to have to explain this for me.
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| T : |
All right. Jasper is probably Josiah's greatest invention or achievement. He invented a new ceramic body and what it is - It's actually a stoneware body and by putting different oxides into the clay, we can make the clay turn color throughout the entire body.
But the beauty of it is you can make what we call bas reliefs or motifs, and we have, you know, we cover it with modelers, and they make this bas reliefs and they attach it to the clay - to a body, for instance, if you are making a vase and they take these motifs and put them on when the clay is still, what we call, leather hard dried before it goes into the fire.
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| P : |
Are we taking about the blue Wedgwood that everybody knows now which I mistakenly thought was something else a moment ago? |
| T : |
That's right. That's right. That's right. Yeah and...
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| T : |
And, you know, it's funny when - again there will be a body of clay that looks rather gray when the artist is working with it. And I would love to tell you the formula, but I am not allowed to, it's a deeply-guarded secret because it has been - the clay has been completely unique to us for almost 220 years.
But what happens is when it goes to the fire, it would change color, so it changed to this pale blue and the relief were changed to a white, and that is just done, you know, again with porcelain you often use glazes to change color or you often paint it, but this was a stoneware body, which changed with just the - yeah, changed just with fire and...
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| P : |
Another stupid question, I am terribly sorry. Stoneware as opposed to porcelain. |
| T : |
It's more of a clay - it's a more of a clay ingredient in there.
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oriental flair：オリエンタルスタイル
brand literate：ブランドに精通している
bandwagon：流行に乗ろうと真似すること
bespoke：注文品の
（ T: Tom, P: Peter ）
| P : |
...I was in your flagship shop a while back, and looking at the different cups and saucers and plates and everything you have on display there, there are not only the very traditional designs everybody associates with Wedgwood immediately, there are also some much more modern things, and some things that even look a little bit Japanese...
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| P : |
Now I understand that you have actually tailored some of your designs for the Japanese market. |
| T : |
Sure, yes. Again, I think today, being part of a global brand, actually even if you look at styles or fashion in the UK at the moment, there is strong oriental flair, and so if we are to represent English style, we have to take into account what English style is today.
And, you know, we don't want to make something specifically just for Japan, but we wanted to maybe take some influence from other cultures and incorporate that into our own style. We have a tremendous task because we are a brand that's almost 250 years, how do we balance our tradition and how do we be innovative. And we were founded on the principle of a spirit of innovation, and again doing something uniquely English.
So, I think today one of the best things we can do is find maybe interesting parts of other cultures and incorporate those into our design.
...one of the reasons I have always been attracted to Japan is because if you look at business here whether it's - either branding or product development, there is so much to be learned. You know, I think if, you know, well, again relating to product development, if you can get it right in Japan, you'll probably be successful anywhere else in the world.
You know, Japan has the most demanding consumers out of everywhere I have experienced, which is something I like. You know, because it really sort of pushes the envelope when it comes to making sure, you know, your quality is spot on and, you know, there's a lot of people now interested in China with all the excitement going on there and I keep stressing to people, don't forget about Japan.
Actually, there's more of an opportunity in Japan now because, you know, Japanese consumer is, you know, they are much more brand literate and they are much more brand mature than most other regions of the world and you can't just rubbish that with branding things anymore.
You know, you have to - you know, you really have to have something behind a brand. So, again this - it's a great challenge for us, you know, and it sort of keeps us on an edge and it makes it very, very interesting.
For example, by contrast, you know, I spent quite a lot of time in China lately and our prestige level in China is growing very fast. We have a consumer, who will buy something just because it's the most expensive. In Japan, it's much more interesting because now, you know, that sort of bandwagon - in fact, you know, it's completely disappearing. You know people are looking for things that are unique; they look anything to make them more individualized and standout a bit more.
So for us, I think that is - it's very, very interesting. A greater challenge there is in Japan though is a lot of people with Japanese - a lot of people in Japan think of Britain maybe, you know, 200 years ago and how do we promote Britain as a very contemporary design culture, which it is at the moment, and so, you know, the more that happens then the more we can start introducing contemporary and saying, you know, this is very much in the spirit of English design. This is very much the spirit of Wedgwood, and again we are just walking this tight rope between innovation and...
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| T : |
...tradition, yeah and Japan gives us the best place in the world to do that, you know, I think because if we get all right here then it will be good for the rest of Asia, it will be good for Europe.
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| P : |
When you have a visionary starting whether it be a company or some other kind of an institution, it's easy enough or it maybe it's not that easy actually for that person themselves to keep the vision going while they were alive.
When they've died and somebody else takes the institution or the company over, you have somebody, who although they may be a direct descendent of that founder, they are going to have slightly different values, you know, everybody has it - slightly different sense of values. How difficult is it to maintain the original vision that Josiah Wedgwood had for the company?
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| T : |
Thank you Peter for putting - reminding me of what this pressure, you know, and I am the eight generation, if I mess it up on my watch. We left it up to the eighth to mess it up.
Yeah - no, it's funny, every family member has brought a different - had brought different aspects in and in a small way different identity to the company, but now I think our core values have never changed. I think it comes from a sense of pride from, you know, the previous generations, who've worked - I mean, yeah, who've worked - who've been involved with the company in its - and there is a tremendous amount of responsibility.
But at the same time, you know, if I look at my father's generation and my grandfather's generation, they worked with that same sort of passion that I imagined Josiah did and that, you know, every single generation, including Josiah have never forced their will or forced their desire or ambition for the next generation to take over.
It's been very organic in some sense, you know, and looking back at my grandfather and father's generation if, you know, you - as a child you saw this passion and no matter what you're interested in, either outside of business or outside of Wedgwood, you felt this kind of desire to keep perpetuating these values that they have had. So, yeah, I think although different influences perhaps when it comes to design, that actual core value of Wedgwood hasn't changed very much - hasn't changed.
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| P : |
What about the philanthropic side, are there activities going on at the moment? |
| T : |
Yeah, I think - yeah, very much so. We don't do anything on sort of a global level, but in each community and each market we try to be as active as we possibly can, you know. We have done some very nice events in Japan with refugees - international refugees and, you know, we are trying to also look for opportunities that are a bit unique...
...for instance, I think last year we had this wonderful auction at the British Embassy, hosted by the Brand Ambassador, and the idea was to get some English brands together and - for a big auction and everyone said 'Auctions don't work in Japan, you're not going to do very well with this.' No, you know, let's do it, try something different.
And we took a vase and I stood up and said, "Okay, I want you all to spend a lot of money for this black vase. But what you will get - is you will get something completely personalized and completely unique and completely bespoke," and it generated quite a lot of money, I think, 2.5 - 2 million - okay, 2 million and I think we've probably the second highest item that went in the auction.
And, yeah, so I look for things that - you know you can find - you can be a corporate and responsible at the same time. You know you can still bring a lot of decent purity to your brand. You know they can go just very nicely together.
In the UK, we did something very similar with - Prince Albert had painted this lovely picture that we decided we'd put on to a vase and we put this up for auction at Royal Gala there. We got 400,000 Pounds...
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| P : |
One of the things we always ask in these interviews is, are you a 'Nikkei Weekly' reader and... |
| T : |
Yeah - no, absolutely it's a funny - if I've been away for quite some time I always come back and it's a funny thing on my desk, isn't it, because there is a load of newspapers. And, you know, people usually expect me to go through and read, you know, three weeks of newspapers.
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| T : |
And, you know, I am never very consistent with the newspapers that I do read. But this is God, it's honest truth, every Monday I am going through and I am taking up 'The Nikkei Weekly,' and that is what I do - go through.
I thoroughly enjoy it. I enjoy the diversity. You know, it's one of the more dynamic newspapers for, well, English I suppose, you know, English-speaking environment to learn about Japanese business. I am always really intrigued with some of their articles.
I remember reading an article about a small Japanese company that all they do is make the screws for hard drives, you know, something - it's a topic that I would have never really picked up, but you know I remember it was an article in 'Nikkei Weekly' that just stood out, and I was fascinated, you know, I went just right through this article and said 'That's the company I would like to go and invest in.'
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| P : |
It must be very much indispensable. Yeah. |
| T : |
Yeah, and so it is the one publication and one newspaper that does stay on my desk, yeah.
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Niall P. Murphy, Ph.D. / Unit Leader
Riken Brain Science Institute
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