Sunday, March 21, 2010

If Japanese thinking could meet Western thinking in the right way

Maybe I was fortunate to have had an interesting group of friends while I lived back in Canada. The kinds of people I knew are pretty much the kind of "make it on their own" people, self starters, in other words.

It doesn't just have to be in business or in the world of money making, but the skills that one does learn in doing things and starting thing on their own, most definitely apply here. And the unfortunate thing over here is that I haven't seen too many of those kinds of people in my age group over here. There are the few, but there aren't many.

I don't know if the generalization is true, but in most hierarchal societies, especially asian ones, most things are handed down from the elders to the younger generations. It's called seniority, I guess. And when people are stuck waiting around for something to be passed along to them, I don't think that many paradigm breaking ideas happen in a system like this. You need the idea and maybe go against mainstream conventional thinking, though I must also add that many controversial/revolutionary ideas were born in the same plight.

That isn't to say that most Asian people are like that. I have met many, especially those that are in music, art or some thing other than working your standard run of the mill company that are exactly like the 2 guys in a garage kind of thing. I just don't think I see or feel it in the technology department. These guys are really good at paying attention to details, even really minute ones that your ordinary westerner might pick up on.

But when it comes to systemic improvement, Japan is pretty hard to beat... Germany might be pretty close up there too from the ones that I know too.

If western "open ended" (ie. try crazy but cool things) thinking met the Japanese "improvement" way of thinking. You'd have a pretty hard combination to beat.

Finding the right people and the idea to make the plunge, however it tough, however.

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