It has been an amazing class/trip to Japan. I learned a lot about mobile consumer behavior and the cultural characteristics that drive some of the behavioral differences. In the end, if you boil the trip down to its base element(s), it all comes down to culture.  When I started this class, the equation I came up with for mobile consumer behavior was Psychology + Culture + Capability =...
Today is our last day in Japan and I got up early, ate and headed out to the Fushimi Inari Shrine. This is a place I’ve always wanted to go and it did not disappoint. It’s about 1/2 hour from our hotel and it was easy to find. There are roughly 1 million photo opportunities and the repetition and process of getting from shrine to shrine was hypnotic. Truly something to be...
We had two full days left in Japan and my students needed to take everything they’d seen/heard/learned (also known as data) and use it to write the create the final project. The final project was a paper and is outlined here. I met with each student team – primary and secondary – to review their area of focus. Â I was very happy with what I saw and was excited to see the final...
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...
As my students and I have walked around Kyoto and Tokyo, we’ve seen many people wearing surgical masks. I asked our guide today why people wore those and he told me it had nothing to do with pollution. It was because people have allergies or they are getting sick. He also mentioned that in times of a health issue spreading through the region, people will wear one to protect themselves...
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...
I received an email from Carol Johnson the marketing chair at Daniels College of Business. She asked me if I would follow up with someone who had emailed her. His name was Dax Hamman. Now you have to understand that Daniels Profs get a lot of emails from “the outside world†– especially Carol – asking for help or some assistance. So I was somewhat skeptical. I looked up his profile and...
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...