A audio and video podcast blog about finding our own Japan during our 20s, 30s, and now 40s.
Got back from a little vacation and found a gem.
Again, I wanted to point out some excellent podcasting from Rich Pav and HerroFlomJapan commenting on the Mixi scandal (Mixi is somewhat like the Japanese version of Myspace.com) and the dilemma of Web 2.0 and social networking. Then, he puts the icing on the cake with some killer Japanese blues music. Please, go check it out this episode, if you know what’s good for you. ^_^
I’m attempting to recover after a rough weekend of cruising to the Bahamas. I believe that I may have contracted something so I’m on the DL for the time being. Anyway, I ran across this which I thought was cute.
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This is an advert for Ajinomoto Stadium in Chofu, Tokyo. Other than being just a strange commercial, I thought it odd that there would be an advertisement for a stadium alone. Anyway, some great simple, funny speaking in there for those of you also learning Japanese. Enjoy!
Today Neilsen announced that it will begin reporting on market data for video game usage in mid-2007. With the constant bickering on who will with future market share between Microsoft’s Xbox, Sony’s PS3, and Nintendo’s Wii – I guess we will finally actually guess intelligently. What isn’t clear though is exactly how Nielsen plans on gathering this data.
Nielsen GamePlay Metrics will use a patented approach to harvest this existing information from current and next-generation video game consoles within these sample households. The new service will passively record the titles of games while capturing key demographic detail about players.
Interesting. Does this mean they will simply “listen” to what the user is playing? At any rate, this should be a huge tool for video game marketers, developers and, and platform producers all around. With the additional demographics on what gamers are actually playing, expect to see more boring Madden and FPS Racer titles as well. But alas, we all really know that 89% of NASCAR fans are really playing Hello Kitty Island Adventure.
I decided to get back on the audio podcasting kick with this post. Probably extremely boring for those who already know me. Plus, this was recorded in the car so there is a bit of road noise. Driving goodness for those who are interested in why this podcast exists.
Show Notes:
Links Mentioned:
My Odeo Channel (odeo/93eb918637d93569)
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
(click for full version)
Tonight we had some help down at trivia. The IMBAs held strong with second place, twice in a row. We made an amazing comeback, down nearly 7 points in the last round. Throughout the game, I was doodling on a piece of paper. Darrah has suggest I upload this as he though the guy with the gun captured the spirit of our IMBA program and upcoming round of finals quite eloquently.
The math is Darrah’s handiwork scoring us points for figuring out how many acres are in a square mile. I still can’t believe we got that one!
This next coming week will be filled with finishing up two more classes and preparing for finals. 69 days left until the end of the semester and 174 days left before I leave for 日本. ãŒã‚“ã°ã‚Šã¾ã™ï¼Push on!
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I’ve got a small confession to make. Graduate school is not that incredibly difficult – it is certainly not medical school. When it comes down to the subject material, given enough time and enough brain cycles, its all pretty elementary stuff. Even our country assessment models for international marketing are nothing but multiplication, addition, division …. the basics. However, finding time to stay organized when everything is flying past your head at 100mph and multiple assignments are competing for your precious thoughts, now THAT’s where it gets difficult.
Classes have slowed a bit down to a dull roar – just three simultaneously for the next two weeks instead of the six we have had for the last four weeks. I spent the better part of today synchronizing my work calendar with my personal calendar. I’ve never had such a large part of my life planned out like I have now. I think I pretty much know what I’m doing until January 8th. I suppose its comforting in one way, knowing where you will be and when, knowing exactly how much free time you think you have, and how much you really have – sometimes wishing I had never seen the latter.
Today, I was able to flex a little IT muscle as well. It felt good to bring out the skills I have used so heavily in the past six years of my professional life. Our admissions office is doing some data analysis so I’ve started the task of doing some data manipulation and data aggregation. It was a great time to take a look at open-source ETL tools.
All in all a good day.
I’ve always been a proponent of adage “work smarter, not harder”. But sometimes, those work smarter opportunities find their ways to me without even needing to try. Earlier this week, I happened to be spending a few minutes searching in advance for some internship opportunities overseas when I ran across a very pleasant surprise that has made my ability to network and find MBA internships that much easier.
A Google search had promptly redirected me to monster.com for job and internship listings for one of my favorite companies, Nintendo. To my surprise, I was unaware that if you have a LinkedIn account and the LinkedIn FireFox plugin, a great little sidebar pops up when you are viewing a job entry such as those on Monster.com. Check out the screen shot here:
This sidebar then tells you how many people in your LinkedIn network actually work for that company presently and are open for contacting. Dance monkey dance! Do the work for me. This will make one part of my job / internship search that much easier.
To get a LinkedIn account, simply visit http://www.linkedin.com – consider it “MySpace for people seeking professional networking”. To get the FireFox plugin for LinkedIn, visit that link and follow the instructions.
Japanese FDI in Iceland? Someone please clue me in.
For a global economics class, my program requires me to research the economic state of a particular country. For this class, I had chosen Iceland since it presents such a unique macro and microeconomic picture. this research I ran across a great website maintained by the Invest in Iceland Agency outlining the particulars of FDI and how to invest in Iceland.
What surprised me however is the availability of a very colorful, very rich PDF in Japanese of investing in Iceland. There were no other languages available that I could see and Japan is truly nearly on the other side of the world from Iceland. I did some brief research and I could not find the connection for myself.
Strange…please help.
Actually, there have always been two. I’m talking about my program’s Japanese track candidates for this year. I was a bit surprised to learn that there were only two Japanese track students when I arrived on campus this July, but after getting to know Alex a little better and going through the Waseda application process together, I’ve come to like the close knit group we have with the Japanese track.
The remainder of the Japanese trackers (class of 2007) had returned in August. Last week was the first time we have actually caught up with them for an encounter more than just passing in the hallway or casually saying hello. Our advisor met us out for dinner at Inakaya where we had two large sushi boats of fish and plenty of beer.
Everyone in the track seems really friendly and have been willing to share their experiences an insight. As Alex and I return from Japan in the summer of 2008, I only hope that we can be as insightful and helpful as those who are helping us now. ã¿ãªã•ã‚“ã€ã‚ã‚ŠãŒã¨ã†ã”ã–ã„ã¾ã™ã€‚
