From: callahan@itr.wa.com (John Callahan) Subject: Re: Japan Report, Part 3: September 1991, Osaka, Tokyo, Yokohama Date: 12 Oct 91 18:48:37 GMT Organization: Information Technology Research, Seattle, U.S.A. In article <1991Oct11.063534.26910@milton.u.washington.edu>, cyberoid@milton. u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) writes: > So what is this kansei, around which all of the industrial initia- > tives are organized? It's a way of seeing things, perhaps derived > from the Shinto tradition of reverence for nature. Kansei is many > things: harmony with the environment, sensibility, resonance, > sensitivity -- in Western terms, weakly, "friendliness." Kansei is > the new theme in Japan. I am not suprised by this new theme. I believe that it has been present in Japanese culture and expressed, subtlely, in Japanese speech for several years. It has only more recently been formalized. The Japanse have a phrase, in English (sorry, I do not speak Japanese), which I have heard used very often. This phrase is, "It is not convenient." Like many things Japanese, this simple phrase demonstrates a very deep under- standing of human behavior and human nature. In the many contexts that I have heard this phrase used, it has meant, in essence, that the action a person may be asked to take was really not in harmony with the persons needs or mode of interacting with the world. It also followed that if something was "not con- venient" that it probably would not be done. The Japanese approach to markets is, "We will provide what the market wants." The approach of many U.S. companies has been the arrogant, "They'll buy what we make." With kansei, I believe that the Japanese have once again captured the essence of what people really want. Kansei, like many Japanese phrases, sounds simple-minded to Westerners when translated in English. Far from being simple-minded, kansei is merely simple. So is, "We must build quality pro- ducts." Look where that has led. > Thus, multimedia, which allegedly responds more closely to > human information-processing behavior, is targeted as the next > immediate goal of the Japanese information industry ... and, after > that, artificial reality follows. Yes, multimedia and artificial reality are "more convenient" than Unix. > A short paper on > the general topic, _The Human Technology Project in Japan,_ > authored by Yamada-san and Harold E. (Smoke) Price, an American > living in New Mexico, is available from NRI. > As one researcher at the HIT Lab > noted on reading the brief, "there's nothing profound about any of > this. It's commonly known." Yes, but in Japan, it is not only known > but also being acted upon. The key is "acted upon." I also suspect that the ideas expressed are quite profound -- just not recognized as such. > Ironically, this bodes well for American and European > researchers in the virtual worlds field, who already adhere to the > human-technology perspective. Convincing our domestic industries > to adopt this paradigm for the most part has been like pulling teeth. I respectfully disagree. I believe that we in the West risk becoming "concep- tually inferior" to our colleagues in the East. If our concepts are inferior (e.g. solving the wrong problem), brilliant execution will not help. (We are good at brilliant execution aren't we?) I believe the difference is that we may "know" the concepts, but the Japanese intellectually and emotionally "embrace" the concepts, working with the con- cepts to gain an even deeper understanding. This does not bode well for American and European VR researchers. VR research is now, and will be for the foreseeable future, driven by quality graduate students. Where will the high quality graduate students want to study VR in 1997? > Finally, there will be resources available to us, from Japan, to > produce the products and services we believe will improve the > quality of life and ultimately (we hope) the human condition. The resources available to us from Japan will be better tools for building virtual worlds. Tools more in harmony with human needs. That's positive. However, the knowledge of how to build the better tools, of what makes better tools and how to test whether tools are in harmony with human needs will remain in Japan. This is negative. It means that the tools, no matter how good, will be developed from the perspective of a single culture. > But this means that we in the West must rapidly improve our > own design methods and technology, so that we can deal as equals > with our colleagues in the East. IMHO, what we must improve is our resolve. We must be willing to put forth the effort, fail, and try again. > This may be a tall order for a bud- > ding R&D community, but for me the message was clear as I boarded > my tired old Continental DC-10, the last to make the Tokyo-Seattle > run: now is our time. Neither too near nor too far. Sayonara. Thank you for this report. I do not believe that most people in the United States and Europe recognize the the high risk of our becoming conceptually inferior. At some point, there may be no catching up. --- John Callahan (callahan@itr.wa.com) UUCP: uunet!nwnexus!itr!callahan Information Technology Research VOICE: (206) 283-5100 Seattle, U.S.A. 98109-0892 FAX: (206) 283-5111