Last
September, Mr. David Hayes, a journalist working for a British trade magazine,
came to interview me. He also interviewed me four years ago, but this time it
was a longer interview. I’ve been looking forward to reading the finished article,
and it has at last been published. It turned out to be over five pages long, a
voluminous article.
Here is the
enlarged photo on the front page.
Behind me are some members of the technical
division having a meeting on a corridor that we call “ISOWA Street.” I’ve never
had my photo taken from this angle, but I think it looks nice.
The article
says, “Isowa Corporation introduces new corporate culture.”
That sounds
cool.
As you
can see in the table of contents, the last of the five pages was entirely
devoted to describing our cultural reform.
“Called ISOWA
Street, the interconnecting concourse has created an atmosphere of working in
one large office. Meeting tables are located along the concourse to encourage interdepartmental
communication.”
Last time,
the article mentioned nothing about cultural reform, even though I referred to
it a lot, but this time they introduced our corporate culture quite a lot, along
with discussions of our machines and status of development.
There’s
an inside story I would like to share with you. In the Nikkei Business article,
we were introduced as “a company at the center of attention from major
companies.”
That
prompted them to ask exactly what kind of companies have visited us.
I gave
them some examples, and what surprised me was that some companies that are very
famous in Japan are virtually unknown abroad.
My interview
was at the beginning of September. That’s why I’m wearing a short-sleeved shirt
with no tie in the picture.
Although I
know it’s an insignificant detail, I’m worrying that Europeans unfamiliar with
Japan’s climate might look at that picture and think it’s still summer in Japan,
even though the article was published in November.
Cool Japan
is a catch phrase not just for “anime” or games. There is also “Cool Japan” in
management.
