More Japanese phones and Galapagos Syndrome

Well, this came at an opportune time. Remember when I was gushing over those Japanese phones last week? Today someone tweeted a link to this NYTimes article, which explains why they haven't been able to expand to other markets.


One of the reasons is that the phones themselves are too advanced for anyone else's infrastructures and capabilities. I knew they were years ahead of the rest of the world, but didn't realize just how much:

[Japan's] cellphones set the pace in almost every industry innovation: e-mail capabilities in 1999, camera phones in 2000, third-generation networks in 2001, full music downloads in 2002, electronic payments in 2004 and digital TV in 2005.

E-mail in 1999? That is bonkers. Apparently this conundrum has a name – Galápagos syndrome. Japan’s cellphones are like the endemic species that Darwin encountered on the Galápagos Islands — fantastically evolved and divergent from their mainland cousins — explains Takeshi Natsuno, who teaches at Tokyo’s Keio University. The only Japanese handset manufacturer that's been able to significantly move into other markets is Sony, largely because of its partnership with Swedish manufacturer Ericsson.

Another big reason for this stunted global growth is that Japanese handset hardware is what seems to get the most resources and attention – bar code readers, credit card chips, electronic built-in car keys, facial recognition, etc. This seem to put the focus on the entire experience within the handset itself, rather than how it can be used as a tool to receive information from other places.


For instance, connecting a phone to a computer is a foreign concept to them, which is one of the reasons the iPhone did so poorly in its launch there. Coincidentally, this Wall Street Journal article from today talks about Apple's and RIM's successes over other brands because of services, software and data packages. "The two accounted for only 3% of all cellphones sold in the world last year but 35% of operating profits." Guess they were onto something all along.

I wonder if Japanese manufacturers could find a way to merge their innovations and vision in hardware with other company's software advancements. Can you imagine a Japanese phone with Apple's software/services, or something like that (one can dream)? It would be even more bonkers than mobile e-mail in 1999. The NYTimes quotes Natsuno's recommendation: "Japan’s handset makers must focus more on software and must be more aggressive in hiring foreign talent, and the country’s cellphone carriers must also set their sights overseas." What do you think?

The curse of knowledge

Last winter, I wrote the May2007 issue of New Next in which I interviewed Heron. Now a full-timer at Naked New York, he was initially hired as an intern. The column focused on choosing your interns wisely, sort of, but also spoke about how we like to hire people at Naked:

The hiring is very strategic here - Naked celebrates diversity of experience in a calculated way. Another intern is from Luxembourg and speaks six languages; we have youth culture and entertainment marketing experts; we have digital jacks-of-all-trades; we have management and research veterans; we have creative strategists, and lots more. With all of us coming from interesting places and having strengths in interlinked areas, we can pool resources to develop more well-rounded (and less generic) solutions to our clients' business issues.

Whether you're hiring an intern, a junior or anybody else, always keep your eyes open for the brilliant misfits. You might find them straight out of school, breaking out of a traditional agency or at a recording studio. The key is to look for good people rather than a skill set. Young people are eager to consume and produce stimuli; they have unrestrained and untainted views on the changes that happen every day in our industry. This new generation has fast-forward futures ahead. If you ignore them, you surely will have a future behind you.

I just read a semi-recent article in the NYTimes about the "curse of knowledge" : "...a phrase used in a 1989 paper in The Journal of Political Economy, means that once you’ve become an expert in a particular subject, it’s hard to imagine not knowing what you do. Your conversations with others in the field are peppered with catch phrases and jargon that are foreign to the uninitiated." We have since hired a Clinical Psychologist and someone with an advanced degree in Cultural Studies, among others... they always have interesting things to say and angles from which they approach situations; we also don't have to worry about hearing things like "user generated content" or "paradigm shift" ;)

The article is fascinating and looks at this topic in a way I hadn't thought of before. My favorite line is "When experts have to slow down and go back to basics to bring an outsider up to speed, she says, “it forces them to look at their world differently and, as a result, they come up with new solutions to old problems."" I frequently have noticed that when explaining something I know a lot about to someone who doesn't, I get really excited and want to fly out of the room to do something, anything... go to a museum, write a letter to someone, play my piano, etc. I wonder if it's because while I'm doing said thing (typing code, trying to write a strategy, etc.), I am too far into the familiar "process" to really think about what makes up what I'm doing. Thus, breaking it down helps me remember everything that makes it up, and I get excited all over again. Does this happen to any of you?

Check out Innovative Minds Don’t Think Alike here (I found out about it - unsurprisingly! - from Creative Generalist).

[The image is called Song in a Minor Key from Snailbooty on Flickr... it was on the first results page when I typed in "minor key," something I'm mildly obsessed with that I often find myself explaining to people (and as a result getting excited /inspired /flying out of the room)] Apparently s/he had a problem with my using the image (or maybe not), but Song in a Minor Key is private now. Searching "most interesting" under "schema" (another love of mine) produced this cute Fiat model photo, from parri67's photo stream. _