A recent report on Newsweek,"This Nation Is An Island”, delivers as its core message how insular Japanese mind-set has been and remain to stay every sector of Japanese society. The message resonate well with previous reports by some of major foreign journals (examples include 2008/02, 2007/12) as well as some of recent books by several Japanese authors some of which were referenced in my recent book in Japanese "Innovation shiko-ho" or "Think of Innovation."
I share this view and you can see many places in this blog.
This report strong argues that Japan remains in essence as always over centuries and continues to be closed, off-limit to foreigners and Sakoku and withdrawn from the rest of the world even this era of flattening globalized world. It is too sad to see Japan not to engage in the global world since there are great talents with vast opportunities for Japan to be a participant and a player of the world action and in pursuit of new world order for our common good.
Mind you, Japan is still number two economy of the world. We need more entrepreneurs who think locally (local values and uniqueness) but act globally. Have you seen recently a business people who remind us Morita-san of SONY of 1960s? Technology alone is not enough. It is an entire business enterprise that enables to capture the hearts of many people of the world.
