Visits of passionate young people

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Recently, I received mails from 2 groups of young people seeking for advice.

In the morning, 5 university students (mostly from Keio University) came to visit me. Each of them was passionate, seeking for advice about their possibilities and career amid this global era. We discussed a lot, about what is happening in the world, the reason for my message and what can and should be done.

Towards the end of their visit, William Saito and Michiko Sugita came (recently, I’ve been to Kyoto with them), so I introduced them to the students. William and Michiko definitely have “out of the box” background. I’m sure none of the students could have imagined such a career in any people around.

Kurokawaandstudents_20081Photo1: the 5 students from the morning visit and Mr.Saito (next to me) and Ms.Sugita (left)

In the afternoon, likewise, a group of six young passionate people came. This group was led by 3 sophomores from Waseda University. They traveled to Bangladesh this year and were shocked by the terrible difference of its situation as compared to Japan, so during their short stay, tried everything they could think of to be of any help. They also knew about the Grameen Bank and were eager to bring change to the situation as well as to Japan. So after coming back, they worked hard to gather information at universities etc., but no satisfying response was given. It was when their motivation was growing even stronger that they came across my blog, and that’s why they sent me an e-mail saying that they had to see me.

20081216c6lPhoto2: the six students in the afternoon.

They all had some knowledge about “Social entrepreneurs”, but since it is a career new to Japan, they didn’t quite know what to do. We talked and discussed about topics like you see in my blog, and by the time they left they were nicely high spirited.

In short, these young people are aware of primordial issues, but they don’t know how to deal with them or even where to begin. Everything is in a mist. Of course, they get lost. Since those primordial issues are something way different from what has been taught or from any social values of Japan which they had taken to be a common sense, it is only natural that they are at a loss. However, on the other hand, a good number of young people and future leaders of the world are taking such paths (Peace Corp, Teach for America etc.) at the beginning of their career, and this kind of first step is now quite popular.

I advised them to begin by seeing and listening to the speech of Steve Jobs from Apple (links). I already got reactions from some students by e-mails.

Because I use “blog”, a “means of web age”, as the tool for sending out messages, getting to see such young people is so easily possible. Isn’t it wonderful?

I shall be seeing them from time to time.

My article on “Mainichi Forum” December 2008 edition

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The following article of mine was carried on the December 2008 edition of “Mainichi Forum” in the section titled “Views”.

A “Community PTA Anyone Can Participate” at elementary school can improve regional unity ? Academics and college students should volunteer

Family health is important for individual health, while community health is necessary for family health. This is the basic idea I have strongly advocated as the chairman of the government’s New Health Frontier Strategy Conference when we compiled a report called the “New Health Frontier Strategy” last April.

The report identifies among its top priorities health of children, women, and the working-age population and increasing the healthy life expectancy of the elderly. What I stressed in particular is to review the role of family and strengthen regional communities in order to promote health with a focus on preventive measures. Increased urbanization, nuclearization of families, the declining birth rate and the advance of women’s role in society is making it increasingly difficult to pass knowledge and skills forward to the next generation in domestic life and child rearing, as well as culture and tradition. The weakened family is now on the brink of collapse. As a result, some young parents don’t know what to do when their child’s temperature suddenly goes up and rush to emergency rooms. The fundamental problem is that basic skills to raise children are not being passed on due to the collapse of family.

Just as a firm root and trunk are necessary for strong branches and leaves to grow on a tree, vibrant families and regional communities are important to be at the foundation of sound individual health policies. Discussions that lack such a broad vision will result in lousy policies.

In urban society, it is important for regional communities to complement weaknesses in families. In Japanese communities, however, a sense of unity is unfortunately diminishing both in cities and rural areas. A disconnected community puts people at big risk if anything should happen. On the other hand, a unified community creates a greater chance for neighbors to notice when something is wrong with an elderly person living alone. There is also more cooperation when disasters strike. Developing a strong community is essential in nurturing family bonds.

In Europe people have traditionally gathered at public spaces in their districts or local churches where they share their beliefs. We, however, don’t have such places in Japan today. So, I would like to propose the use of the 22,000 elementary schools around the country as community gathering places. Schools are usually located in areas that are relatively easy for anyone to reach because children as young as first graders commute. They can serve as centers of community where elders, young people and mothers in the area can congregate at their free time. This can take off heavy responsibilities placed on teachers, giving them more time to focus on teaching classes because the people who have gathered can look after the children too. Schools will in essence have a running “Community PTA Anyone Can Participate”. If a child becomes sick the mother can seek advice from other mothers on what to do, or may be able to find somebody they met there to look after the child. Naturally people may talk about their doctors of preference, and this will result in local physicians becoming part of the community too. Local governments can provide mini-bus services going around the district picking people up and delivering them to school. They should also support voluntary community activities that continue on the weekends.

Inside this community, many adults will be looking after the children’s well-being and food. Some elderly people may even scold kids at school for not eating breakfast in the morning. Having this kind of relationship with other community members is important for young boys and girls, especially since there’s a recent increase in children who have never been scolded before. Even outside of school, there will naturally be more people calling out to the kids on the streets. This will help improve their attitudes and behavior because they will be conscious that others are watching them. Parents can feel safe to leave their children at school until around 6 pm, knowing that they will have a wide variety of things to do such as study, read, exercise and play under the supervision of many adults. It will also give teachers more time to focus on their work and may improve their relations with parents.

A sense of unity can contribute to preventive care

Women(and men) who have grown up in nuclear families don’t have much contact with their siblings or grandparents and hardly have any experience in holding babies or lulling them to sleep until they get married and have children themselves. These women can receive support and a sense of security from the community, as many people will try to help them on a daily basis when they see that they are pregnant. This will contribute to developing a brighter society. Separately, people in the community can help each other by casually sharing episodes like how they quit smoking or overcame the Metabolic Syndrome through exercising. In this way, adequate preventive care will be promoted in the community not through a top-down government policy, but through a sense of togetherness.

There are nearly 500 public health offices nationwide, but a sense of unity seems to develop more in areas where their staff or nurses actively reach out to the community. So, it is important for members of these facilities to interact with local residents on a daily basis.

Another point I have advocated is for university faculty and staff members and graduate and college students to volunteer at local elementary, junior high or high schools for about 20 hours a year (including weekends). By teaching alongside school teachers, graduate students and university faculty can develop confidence in their specialty areas while learning how to teach children. Another incentive for graduate and college students to volunteer would be to offer them teaching certificates. Many students may develop a desire to become teachers after volunteering at the schools. The education arena could change dramatically if a system is implemented to hire such people as teachers, even if they are in their 30s. Such flexible work styles and career paths would also strengthen the school-based regional community. Centers of community like those at elementary schools can also be set up at junior high and high schools, kindergartens, facilities for the elderly, and hospitals. Local governments should support such programs that will help form communities that anyone can participate.

There is a movement that is likely to positively influence the formation of regional communities. It is called social entrepreneurship and is spreading around the world. One example in Japan is a non-profit organization called Florence that supports working women. It is a day-care center specifically for sick children and operates on a membership fee which amounts to several hundred dollars a year. The center has a registered person from the local community look after a child who falls sick or, in some cases, dispatches a local doctor to their homes. This bottom-up style of management is a “social business,” and the founder is called a “social entrepreneur.”

Communities are not imposed from above by local governments, but we create them. In Japan we need to form local communities where people of different generations can interact, or else the lack of connection in both urban and rural areas could lead to the country’s collapse. So, it is “Back to Basics” in both public health and medical care. I would like to emphasize again that all health policies should be based on underlying principles that will create community health and revitalize family strength.

One more comment on health care reform

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Lately there has been vibrant movement towards health care reform. But what I think matters the most are the policies at the basis of the actions. It is inevitable that people and parties concerned make comments from their own positions. That is the natural process of politics.

At the same time, however, it is extremely important to discuss policy based on historical background and provide a medium to long-term vision. Government plans tend to become short-sighted.

When I offer my comments on this blog or in books or newspapers, I always try to maintain a broad perspective because I feel that there is a lack of opinions on policy like that.

Recently the Yomiuri newspaper ran a large proposal for health care reform (October 16 morning edition). Following the proposal, it carried an article entitled “Health care renaissance No.4479, Opinions on the proposal from those working in the field: Start with improving efficiency of the medical system” on November 21(page 21), which includes my comments. The following are the main points in the article:

■Many doctors working in the field responded to Yomiuri newspaper’s health care reform proposal, which we ran on October 16. In a four-part series, we will introduce some of the opinions we received as well as those from experts.

■We proposed to counter the doctor shortage by strategically planning the distribution of physicians. There is a noticeable shortage of doctors in rural areas, emergency medical services, and specialty areas such as pediatrics and obstetrics. In order to eliminate such inequalities, we proposed to strategically allocate physicians by setting fixed numbers for geographic distribution and specialty mix.

■The distribution plan would begin with young doctors who just finished their first two years of residency after specializing in medicine at university and who are about to embark on the second half. We proposed that university and core hospitals in the area, the medical association, and local government should set up a municipal organization in charge of allocating the physicians. The allocation would be based on the preference of the doctors, but they would not always be able to work at their first choice if that specialty or region fills up. Some doctors after reading this proposal sent in opinions, saying “Doesn’t this go against the rights to have “freedom of choice in occupation” and ”freedom of living location” that are guaranteed in the constitution?”

I think the discussion has set off on a great start.

■Regarding this point, Professor Yoshitaka Wada of Waseda Law School has commented that “It will be difficult to legislate municipal physician distribution, but it should not be a problem if the medical world itself works out a framework for distribution. By designating a fixed number of doctors for each specialty area, the current imbalance can be corrected to provide an adequate specialty mix of physicians.”

■Vice-director of the Saitama Prefecture Saiseikai Kuribayashi Hospital, Dr. Hiroshi Honda who has also written a book issuing a stern warning about medical equipment says, “I can understand the idea of strategically allocating doctors and believe it is feasible.” He says that even if physicians end up in their second choice in a rural area when their first preference in the city has filled up, they would learn a lot from gaining experience in remote areas. He adds, “However, it should not be a one-way ticket to a rural area. The system should allow doctors to work with the security of knowing that, after a fixed period of time, they are guaranteed to return to a university hospital where they can earn specialty qualifications.”

■Dr. Kiyoshi Kurokawa, a doctor of internal medicine and professor at the National Graduate Institute of Policy Studies, also supports the strategic planning of the distribution of physicians. However, he points out that “Before deciding on the adequate number of doctors for each geographical location and specialty, it is indispensable to improve the efficiency in the current system providing health care.” For instance, he says, local doctors and nurses can work regularly at core hospitals in the area to provide 24-hour emergency medical care. This will help prevent emergency patients from being bounced around hospitals. In addition, he says, university and other hospitals should focus on inpatient care, while it will be more efficient for local private practitioners to participate in outpatient treatment if necessary. Dr. Kurokawa goes on to say, “There are fundamental laws for most important areas like education and the environment, but not in health care. It is high time to set up fundamental health care laws and stipulate the ideas of reform.”

What do you think? Yomiuri newspaper is doing a great job. The journalists in charge of the piece should be very happy if you send in your comments too. I hope everybody will participate in the process of policy-making as much as possible.

Global Entrepreneurship Week, NPO nurturing young entrepreneurs

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Kauffman foundation is a foundation devoted to Entrepreneurship.

From November 17 to 23, the foundation orgnaized  “Global Entrepreneurship Week” involving about 80 countries of the world to promote global understanding of entrepreneurial spirit and actions. Japan hosted two meetings, each in Tokyo and Kyoto, under the initiatives of Honda Foundation, GRIPS where I belong, Asia Productivity Organization, etc. By the way, Honda prize awarding ceremony was held a day before the Tokyo meeting. Official language was English for all meetings.

The meeting in Tokyo was opened with a lecture, followed by a project named “Elevator Pitch”.  Participants must “sell their idea(s) or project(s) to an angel investor in 30 seconds in an elevator which they happened to meet”. Three teams were selected from nearly 40 applications by screening of video presentations, and each presented as a team of three persons. The winners of the game were Asia Pacific University and Akita International University. Students from Akita were all females and no Japanese was included. Let me point out that those two universities are exceptionally internationalized compared to most of other universities in Japan.

To illustrate how "internationalized" they are, for example, 50% of 5000 Asia Pacific University undergraduates are from overseas and half of the courses are offered in English.

At Akita International University, T-score of students is over “80” at the time of admission, as I was told. It is a small university but with full liberal arts education. All students are required to reside in dormitory during their junior year, will study for one year at overseas universities during their enrollment, and 40% of the students in campus are international students because of this student exchange program. All courses are basically given in English with exceptions of elective language courses such as Japanese, French, etc.

In Kyoto, the venue was Ritsumeikan University. The lecturers here were also energetic and I enjoyed very much.

Photo: At Kyoto University. Kid entrepreneurs participated, too.

Fujimizueco

Photo: At Kyoto University. Kid entrepreneurs participated, too.

Konnyaku_2

Next day, at Kyoto University clock tower in the midst of university festival, there were presentations and booth exhibition hosted by NPO Center for Entrepreneurship Education. It’s topic was businesses targeting on practical local ecology, and even primary school children were participating. Visit the Web site of the event (in Japanese but photos are nice) to catch the idea of its atmosphere. They were quite entertaining and also a good opportunity to understand the unique and interesting ideas those children and students have. I even thought that some of them already had potentials of flourshing just with a little help from existing corporations. Apparently, this kind of event provides a wonderful education and good experience for young people. I hope you will extend support for those activities.

Ms. Kikuko Harada, the leader of this NPO is doing a good job. Your support and personal or institutional donations are welcome here also. I urge you to visit its web site. The children looks nicely high spirited and motivated, don’t they?

Is income disparity leading to mortality disparity?

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Inequality between rich and poor is increasing even in Japan and large number of unnatural accident is reported. People cannot depict a bright future, I suppose. Citizens are feeling insecure and living self-destructive life. This attitude spreads to families and then to children. Tragic news we hear so often these days are probably not irrelevant to this. Humans are social being and cannot live alone.

Under normal circumstances, everyone live life in their own way, but when something wrong happens weak people easily become victims as they are not flexible. During these 10 years, a notable increase is observed in suicides in Japan (Approximately 30%, the increase is mostly in men in 40s and 50s. What may be the reason? ). Collapse of medical system, unbelievably irresponsible “mismanaged” pension schemes and rise in irregular employment etc. —Japan politics and government’s failure in coping with the changes in global world is responsible for this. Victims of poverty will increase, I must say.

Medical care and education are social infrastructures that must be supported by government.  Current inadequacy of the support is resulting in inequality in the society that will be carried over for generations forming the major cause of social instability.

People from the low income group tend to refrain from taking medical treatments even if their health condition is poor. Social system of Japan structured in the period of economic growth is not working well now as there are problems such as increase in the self-payment burden, uncertainty of income, and household problems. Politics, government and society are not functioning for the reformation. Historically speaking, the people in “government, industry, bureaucracy” with vested interest formed a strong structure during the several decades in the latter half of 20th century and this is now working as hindrance to reformation. Firm collaboration mechanism is built among politics, government office, and the industrial world. At the time of economic growth, re-distribution of wealth to the society was functioning in its own way by the system of so-called "Iron triangle" in Japan. The basic systems indispensable to society such as education, pension, and healthcare were also functioning in a satisfactory manner. However, today, those people having traditional predominant rights are simply not coping with changes in the world environment which Japan is surrounded with.

“People from low income group die early” is a phenomenon that is often reported. This is basic human-rights issue and is the large core message of Commission Report of WHO, a conference held at London about which I have recently reported twice. For the OECD nations like Japan, disparity etc. are both domestic issues and political problems. This means it will depend on whom you select in the election. (Even if you disagree, this is the foundation of democratic

There is an article in Asahi Shimbun about recent performance of Professor Katsunori Kondo on economic disparity, health disparity, and “Life span disparity”. My comments were also published. Of course, I had a lot more to say but the space was limited. Similar behavior of people is observed in the research of our think-tank Health Policy Institute, Japan.

 

Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize, our story to tell

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Dr. Hideyo Noguchi is one of the most known medical doctor and heroe of modern time Japan. But he is not known in the rest of the world though you can see his bust in the library of Rockefeller University, where he worked from its establishment in 1904, and made this new research institution known to the world in early 20 century. You also see him printed in Japanese 1,000 Yen note.

This May, Japanese government inaugurated Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize and two laureates, Dr. Brian Greenwood of UK and Miriam Were of Kenya, were awarded the prize at the first evening, May 28th, 2008, of the 4th Tokyo International Conference of African Development as you may see I earlier columns of my blog.

Now our story appears in print. We hope you enjoy reading more or less a full story of the prize and share the spirit of Dr. Noguchi with your friends in and of Africa and throughout the world.

“Health care reform: Grasp reality and set up fundamental laws”

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Health care collapse. Medical reform. Doctor shortages. Exhaustion in the medical profession. All these words you hear a lot in Japan. It seems like there’s never a shortage of stories describing the critical state of the health care system. Although Health Minister Yoichi Masuzoe is showing political leadership to improve the situation, the problems are quite daunting. For the past 20 years I myself have been quite vocal about health policy issues in Japan and have been taking action in different areas. The health care system is one of the major challenges that Japanese politics needs to address. It is hard to imagine in a megacity like Tokyo that a pregnant woman recently could have died from brain hemorrhage after various hospitals, even a university hospital, turned her away.

My opinions were carried on the “My View” column of the Asahi Shimbun newspaper’s morning edition on October 30 under the title of “Health care reform: Grasp reality and set up fundamental laws.” As the title suggests, I think that, in the end, what is necessary is the introduction of fundamental laws. Considering the current political climate, I hope parties will draft their manifestos on health care reform, along with the pension issue, and make it into a priority policy that will be debated across party lines. In a society where safety is not ensured, you cannot expect action or vitality because people will be worried. The following are the main points I raised in the column, as I struggled to keep the text within the newspaper’s space constraints.

”Health care reform: Grasp reality and set up fundamental laws”

●Amid mounting calls to address the doctor shortages and problems with emergency medical services, Health Minister Masuzoe has started drafting a ministry policy guideline entitled “Vision to secure medical services of sense of security and hope.” Last month he convened an expert panel and released the mid-term plan, but I have doubts about it. It does not offer an analysis of the current situation, nor does it provide a long-term vision. The plan basically relies on a dramatic increase in the number of physicians. I would like to offer my frank advice from a standpoint of having worked in the medical field in both Japan and the United States for over 40 years and served as Special Advisor to the Abe Cabinet on health policy issues.

●The mid-term plan asserts that it “aims to increase the number of medical students by about 50 percent.” However, it does not explain how they will be trained or distributed (by geography or specialty). Simply increasing the number of doctors without considering social conditions will not solve problems. It is necessary to increase the number of doctors per citizen. At the same time, it is important to take a systematic approach.

●Firstly, the uneven geographical distribution of doctors needs to be addressed. Kyoto Prefecture has the highest number of doctors with 292; More than twice the number in the lowest prefecture of Saitama, which has 142. Although each hospital has a set number of posts for regular staff, there is no fixed number or framework by region or municipality. By adjusting the number of residents according to local needs, I believe geographical inequalities will diminish dramatically. If it is made mandatory for residents to work in areas without doctors for several months from the second year of their residency, it would provide them with diverse work experience as well as reduce doctor-less areas.

●The uneven distribution of doctors by specialty is also a widely recognized problem. There is a shortage in surgeons and obstetricians, while on the other hand psychiatrists and plastic surgeons are increasing. In order to provide adequate medical care to people, the medical training system needs to undergo a dramatic reform. The medical world itself should decide on the numbers for physicians by specialty and clarify the necessary qualifications. When I spent 15 years in a university hospital in the United States, doctors were also working as researchers and teachers. We learned from each other and built a strong sense of responsibility through a friendly rivalry. Japan should learn from such strict professional training methods and qualification standards in the US.

●There is also room to improve the institutions that provide medical care. Although Japanese hospitals have an extremely large number of beds compared to those in other developed countries, the facilities are not evenly distributed geographically. Many similar medical institutions are clustered together in a small area. By drafting medical plans by municipality, overlaps in services and facilities can be reduced to enable a better quality and balanced medical care. This will help increase the number of doctors per patient, and as a result create better working conditions for doctors. Such municipality-based planning should also work to prevent incidents like the recent case where numerous institutions rejected the admission of a pregnant woman. So it’s not only the number of doctors that needs to increase, but reform is necessary in the system and management of medical institutions.

●All the above is my private opinion. I believe that the mid-term plan does not recognize the current situation this way or offer specific methods for reform like this. The experts invited to the panel must have conveyed the pressing needs of those working in the field.

●What is important for Japanese people is not a simple increase in the number of doctors, but more high quality doctors. It is necessary to train physicians not only in their practice, but in a way that they can gain diverse work experience, a strong sense of responsibility, and a wide scope of judgment. In the Canadian and US “medical school” system, which has spread to Australia and South Korea, a college graduate without a bachelor degree in medicine can aspire to become a doctor by attending a 4-year graduate medical program. Now is a good time to promote this system in Japan.

●As there is great public attention in health care in Japan right now, it is the right time to begin setting up new fundamental laws that stipulate the basic principles, instead of haphazardly addressing problems as they arise.

That’s all I want to mention. I will continue to speak out about health care issues, not just from my own position but from a broader perspective, and will maintain the point of view of the public. I also intend to continue with my various activities at the Health Policy Institute Japan. I hope you will extend your kind support.

 

Mr. Miki Watanabe, Education and Special zone for Agriculture

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Mr. Miki Watanabe, President of Watami Co. Ltd., is a very enthusiastic and a dashing entrepreneur and chief executive, who is turning excellent passions and dreams into a reality.  He authored many books as well.  Search at "amazon" for these books.  Caring about the education, he is rapidly expanding activities such as education assistance to many children not only in Japan but as well as in Cambodia (recently in Nepal too).  It is really admirable.

As the price of crude oil is increasing (at present the price is temporarily stabilized but, eventually to what extent will it rise?), there is already shortage of food worldwide (moreover, there is a sign of condition to be worse due to changing climate, scarcity of water etc.) and so the present condition where millions of people are starving to death (also called as "2C+3F" －Climate Change and Fuel, Food, Feed－) is hardly expected to improve.  I would say that agriculture must be promoted as a growing Industry from a long term point of view since agriculture technology of Japan is excellent.  Many worldwide brands will emerge from this sector not to mention the obvious improvement of  the food self sufficiency ratio.  Moreover, since non-edible parts of agricultural products may be widely used as reclyclable energy, research and development in this field is already becoming competitive worldwide.

I speak whenever there is an apportunity, as does Mr. Watanabe.  In May this year, for example, I had an opportunity to speak about agricultural policies at a committee meeting of Liberal Democratic Party that was attended by Mr. Koichi Kato as the chairman, Mr. Motegi, Secretary General, and Mr. Yatsu, Member of the House and former Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

Mr. Watanabe uses Special zones for Agriculture also (it is difficult to use in reality, why is it so?), and as I was hoping to talk with him about this, he kindly set up an opportunity for me.  A one page summary of this dialogue is scheduled to be released soon.  Some parts of the talk is posted in his blog (in Japanese).

From Singapore, The opening ceremony of Fusionopolis

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After my visit at Seoul, I came to Singapore to participate in the opening ceremony of Fusionopolis.  Attended by many scientists in Singapore and around the world, Director Lim of A*STAR made a welcome speech.  Then, a powerful message from the Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, followed by fascinating high tech holographic demonstration, musical performance by researcher group, and a reception.  I had the honor of being introduced to the Prime Minister Lee at the reception hall and talking with him.  He explained how his government is committed to making Fusionopolis a center full of energy that attracts scientists and youth around the world.  By the way, the architecture of Fusionopolis was designed by Dr. Kisho Kurokawa, a well known Japanese architect.

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photo  Prime Minister Lee at the Opening.

On the next day, I attended the board meeting of A*STAR.  Then, in the evening of the day after, had dinner with Professor Ito (ref. 1 ), a very active scientist at A*STAR as well as former director of Institute for Virus Research, Kyoto University, and Mr. Kakihara, the manager of Riken Singapore office.

Anyway, I would like all of you to know how sad I am not to see Japanese researchers, especially young generations, participating in such places to mix with other researchers for training and competition as Samurais did for fencing in their era.  Shouldn’t Riken stop making excuses and send more scientists to Fusionopolis?  I dare say that Riken is just wasting their money if they don’t.  As I always say, I do not want to hear excuses for not doing.  Remember the Japanese old sayings such as "Young ones head to wilderness (Wakamono wa koya wo mezasu)" or "If you love your child, let him/her travel (Kawaii ko niwa tabio saseyo)."  They have universality and implications.

I expect everyone to do better.

“Galapagosnization (Galapagos-ka)” of Japanese manufacturers

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The word "Galapagos ka (Galapagosnization)" (if you "Google" the word in Japanese, it will hit nearly 360 thousand sites) is now widely spreading.  I trust that you are aware of this word.

At last a book titled extactly it, "The Galapagosnizing Japanese manufacturers" (original title is "Galapagos-ka suru Nihon no Seizogyou") appeard from Toyo Keizai Shinpo-sya.

I urge you to read this book.  It is a helpful reference especially for the people in business.

It is often said that "Manufacturing items (Monotsukuri)" is the strength of Japan, but that only is not enough.  As I have mentioned many times in my blog.

"Story telling (Monogatari)" is very important to catch hold of people’s heart.  "Monotsukuri" is just a part of "Monogatari."  So set the goals, develop strategies and move on rapidly.  Do we find people like Morita of Sony or Soichiro Honda of Honda of the ’60s, today?  They did the "business."  Today, in this global era, speedy action is important.  Those with "domestic only" attitude had better get out of the business.  Young generation does not grow with such thinking.

People always say that "Japan is the number one country in technology" but, how much has it advanced so far in the world?  Next month the King of Spain is going to visit Japan with the rising solar panel industries of Spain.

This book has various hints as the author Dr. Tomohiko Miyazaki, Doctor of Theoretical Physics, Department of Science at Tokyo University, has provided the data based on the results of the research for Nomura Securities Co., Ltd.  After reading this book one should firmly think about ‘what he has to do’ without telling ‘excuses for not doing’ and go on carrying things out one by one.  Especially, I expect that the "leaders" and people holding responsible positions in the business enterprises take actions.  Please behave in such a way that you will be a role model for the youth.  Everyone in Japan and the world is looking at you.

This year is the 150th year of the publication of "On the Origin of Species" by Darwin.  It’s core message is "Not those who are the strongest or the wisest, but those who adapt to the environmental changes will survive." (Please refer to my speech on this site).  Speed to adapt will determine the winner.

Is Japan adapting enough to the changes of environment in today’s "globalization and flat world?"  This is a topic that also repeatedly appears in Dr. Yoko Ishikura’s blog.