Today we started in Kyoto and ended up in Tokyo. In the morning, we visited the Kiyomizu-dera and SanjÅ«sangen-dÅ. We started to see more and more of the selfie sticks. (I guess the choice between genetically engineering people with longer arms or having them buy selfie stick, the stick makes more sense.) Also, when people take selfies in the US, they seem a little self-conscious. In Japan...
I got a chance to talk to our tour guide, Akira Sato in Kyoto. He sings country and western in a band and his stage name is Slim Sato. Enjoy!
We conducted 12 qualitative interviews at Doshisha University over the 3rd and 4th. Each interview lasted roughly one hour and had two students, one translator and one interviewee. We worked hard to help interviewees relax since they were outnumbered 3 to 1. Luckily for us, it seemed as though everyone knew one another – translators/interviewees – and that seemed to help. I’ve...
It rained. It rained copious amounts. This is not something Coloradans are used to. We get snow but it’s sunny 387.2 days a year. We were supposed to do a tour today of Doshisha University, but it was raining too hard. We would have needed a submarine. We also missed the Dean. But we got to meet Yu and he’s a great asset. Very attentive and speaks/writes three languages. Chinese, Japanese...
We arrived in Osaka today a little after 4pm. We flew in on the new Boeing 787. This is an amazing plane! Power supply for my laptop. Recharger for my iPhone and windows that dim to your preferred brightness. I got so much done that I wanted them to take a couple more laps around the earth. When we got in, I think we all underestimated the fact that we have zero language skills when it comes to...
The first half of the course was spent defining the mobile landscape and how consumers were using it. The last part of the class had us reviewing Japan. That is to say, reviewing Japan’s economy, government, culture and tech. In summary, things are very complicated and are tied to the past and the need to embrace the future probably more so than any other country in the world. We also had two...
This was the first class I’ve ever taught where I had students that weren’t necessarily there to learn about the subject. They were there to go to Japan first and the class was a second consideration. This meant that my delivery of the material changed. I felt obligated to sell them on why the material was important based on their area of focus. I’m not sure if they noticed it, but it felt...
This may be the longest post in the history of the Internet. It may break it. Ideally this would have been done the day I taught the class but this quarter was exceptionally busy. In fact, the last time I was that busy was during grad school while working a full time job. I was a human piñata this quarter. But below is an outline of what material I covered during the class. Intro – The first...
This was a challenge. It is relatively easy to interview people to get them to answer simple questions. Qualitative interviews are more than that. The goal was to get people to open up about how they used their smartphones and then get them to think about – and then convey – why they used them in those ways. This is no small task. The biggest hurdle for most is to get interviewees to...