Japan 2004 - Day 4 (A day with the IRU)

The International Road Transport Union is quite a remarkable organization. Based in Geneva, the IRU represents the entire road transport industry world-wide. It speaks for the operators of coaches, taxis and trucks, from large transport fleets to driver-owners. By pushing for standards and working with various inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations, the IRU is able to have a positive impact on vehicle safety and efficiency and, through congestion and pollution reduction, on the environment. The IRU also knows how to organize a near flawless international event.

The 29th IRU World Congress opening ceremony rivaled those held by the Olympic Games. The conference took place at the historic Port of Yokohama, 18 miles south of Tokyo. The InterContinental Grand Yokohama Hotel was quite impressive on it's own but the National Convention Hall, Pacifico Yokohama next door was awesome. With over 5,000 seats, this is one of the world's largest convention halls. It is constructed in the shape of a giant shell, and has outstanding audiovisual, lighting and simultaneous interpreting facilities. This latter feature was important because the 1,450 attendees came from five continents and 58 countries. Speeches were simultaneously translated into English, French, German, Russian, Farsi, Turkish, Spanish, and Japanese. When the conferenceis held again in two years, Chinese will certainly be added to the list. (read more)

Travels April 30, 2004 10:22 PM

Japan 2004 - Day 3 (Visiting IBM Tokyo Research Laboratory)

IBM Research is an amazing organization and visiting it's labs over the years was always a great experience. IBM's elite research organization includes roughly 3,000 of the world's brightest at eight labs in Almaden, Austin, China, Israel, India, Tokyo, Yorktown Heights (NY), and Zurich. Research is conducted in all areas of information technology, from physics and cognitive science to leading-edge e-business applications. The inventions lead to 3,415 patents in 2003, enabling IBM to receive more U.S. patents than any other company in the world for the eleventh consecutive year. It was a great pleasure to be able to visit the Tokyo lab as part of my trip last week. Yuriko Sawatani, of the Systems &Technology group was my host for an afternoon visit. Tai-san gave me an overview of activities at the lab, a number of researchers presented their projects, and then I gave a presentation about The Future Of The Internet, followed by an active discussion of some of the issues. It is always stimulating to be in the company of such brilliant and creative people. (read more)

Travels April 27, 2004 11:25 PM

Japan 2004 - Day 3 (Traveling to Yamato by car)

After visiting the two conferences and then calling home with Net2Phone VoIP (voice over the Internet) from my ThinkPad, I met Megumi Okamoto (Director for the World Expo Unit of IDG Japan, Inc.), who graciously offered to drive me to Yamato for my visit at the IBM Tokyo Research Laboratory. Meg has a very nice bright red compact Audi, complete with a large screen GPS.

Meg told me that nearly all cars in Japan have GPS. (In fact I rode in one that had GPS receivers in both the front and rear seats). A speaker later in the week, Dr. Nakahara of ITS Japan, said that the world should be grateful for the Japanese GPS system because the streets and roads are so complicated in Japan that if the technology can work there, it can work anywhere. The Japanese GPS systems are much more advanced than what we have in the U.S. For example, during Cherry Blossom season, the GPS map has pink flower icons that appear on the screen wherever there are cherry blossoms in bloom. When they are no longer in bloom, the flower icons disappear. To go to a desired destination, you can punch in the phone number, and you will get the directions. As you zoom in on the screen, buildings appear in 3D. If that isn't enough, you can also connect your cell phone to the GPS display and surf the Net at speeds eight times faster than dial-up. (read more)

Travels April 25, 2004 12:08 PM

Japan 2004 - Day 2 (The Gala and The Hanezawa Garden)

Japanese people are continually showing their respect for others. Japan Telecom employees did this on a grand scale on Tuesday evening. There have been some changes in ownership of the company and a new president was to be introduced this evening to 1,600 of the company's customers and business partners. I was fortunate to be invited along with Tamai-san. As we were discussing how hard it is to find someone you may be looking for in such a large crowd, I turned and there was Kitashiro-san, chairman of IBM Japan, Ltd. and now chairman of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives. It was very good to see him. There was a long line to meet the new Japan Telecom president but it was worth seeing Kurashige-san once again. He had been a senior executive in IBM for some years. I had hoped to see Otoshi-san during the trip but he was in New York.

After the gala, Tamai-san and I met up with Dan Powers. Dan is IBM VP for Websphere sales in the Asia Pacific region and formerly was part of the Internet technology team of which I was a member. I have known him for more than ten years. The three of us and Tim Walsh headed to The Hanezawa Garden in the Shibuya-ku section of Tokyo. This is a most difficult place to find -- even with the sophisticated GPS system in Japan. The Hanezawa Garden is a former residence nestled in among the crowded streets containing a salon, a bar, the Sushi Bar, The Cigar Room, and five dining rooms. The sushi and every part of the dinner were outstanding. We took some pictures in the garden afterwards. Unfortunately, Tamai'san's camera battery was low and my camera was not able to handle the lighting conditions. It probably can, but I do not know how. Sorry to say my photographic skills are so weak. (See photogallery for my attempts).

The long day came to an end, and I had learned a lot. The next day I would learn even more. (related links)

Travels April 24, 2004 11:21 AM

Japan Update

Part 2 was just posted and there are another half dozen or so installments coming. Please ignore the postings for days 3-5 as they are preliminary copies of prior postings. I will be updating them over the weekend. The photo gallery is updated with captions and you can find the latest here.

Travels April 23, 2004 10:42 PM

Japan 2004 - Day 2 (Conferences, Hakozaki, and The Gala)

There are 123 million people in Japan and ten percent of them live in one city -- Tokyo. It is a magnificent place. Tokyo has many sections like all major cities of the world. My stay for the first two days of the trip was in Shinjuku. Homebase was at the Century Hyatt, nestled among the many skyscrapers and apartments and home to two million people. Setsuro Tamai (President & CEO of IDG Japan, Inc.) and Megumi Okamoto (Director for the World Expo Unit of IDG) were kind enough to meet me at the hotel and host a wonderful dinner. We took off our shoes and enjoyed a casual but traditional Japanese meal on the 52nd floor of an office building overlooking the city. Our discussion focused on the key trends and directions of the IT industry and the upcoming conferences to take place this week. (read more)

Travels April 23, 2004 09:57 PM

Japan Update

This has been an extraordinary week for me. I have made many new friends and learned a great deal -- I feel very fortunate. There is much to write about. Also, I have taken many pictures. Now I need to organize and caption them! For an interim view of some ot them, click here. I will do some writing on the long flight from Narita tomorrow.

Travels April 22, 2004 09:38 AM

Japan 2004 - Day 1 (Traveling to Japan and traditional dinner)

The Japan Airlines Flight #005 departed JFK exactly on time and landed at the Tokyo International Airport in Narita, Japan exactly on time. During each moment of the 13 hour and 25 minute flight you could sense the feeling emanating from the JAL crew that they truly enjoyed serving you. They could not do enough for the passengers. Upon leaving the airplane each crew member bowed and smiled to express their appreciation for having been able to serve. That is what I like about traveling to and visiting in Asia -- things just work the way they are supposed to.

Upon taking off, the Boeing 747-400 headed north west, through Canada on a great circle route that made a huge arc toward the top of the world and then south across the International Date Line to the island of Japan. As the car nears Tokyo on the way to Shinjuku, the Magellan GPS indicated that we were at 35 degrees 40 minutes North of the equator and just over 140 degrees East of the Greenwich meridian. (read more)

Travels April 19, 2004 09:59 AM

What Have You Been Up To?

New York was the place of business for me on five occasions during the past four days (you can read that as my excuse for not writing many stories on patrickWeb this week). I ran into several people that I had not seen in a very long time and invariably, one of us asked "What have you been up to?". I was happy to learn that some of them were CEO's or CFO's of major companies and I am proud to know them. In my own case, since e-tirement at the end of 2001, I have yet to develop a really succinct and clear answer to the question of what I am "up to". The short version would be writing, speaking, serving on boards, attending conferences, and spending some time (not enough) on my hobbies. I feel very fortunate to be able to keep an active participation in the technology industry and to help out in various non-profit organizations.

There is a long queue of things that I plan to write about when I get back from Japan, including the status of WiFi, blogging, various Internet technologies, and spam. I am very bullish about all of them -- yes, even spam. One thing is for sure and that is that legislation can not solve the spam problem. However, some of us have been saying for quite a while that technology can and will solve the problem. Numerous companies are focused on this and venture capital money is flowing to them. More importantly, the technical community -- including some of the best and brightest people in the industry -- are on the case. I knew this would happen. Spam has reached the point where the intellectual curiosity among computer scientists has been aroused. (read more)

Internet Technology April 18, 2004 09:40 AM

Give The Conductor A Doggie Bone

Thanks to readers for reminding that I have not posted a story for almost a week. My only excuse for not being more prolific during the last few days is that I have been very busy -- board meetings, conference calls, some travel, a bit of motorcycle riding necessitated by occasional bursts of sunlight, and far too many re-boots of Windows. There are many Internet technology related things to write about, but this short story will be about conducting.

Music is an important part of life for most people. In addition to appreciating the great composers and musicians of the world, we should also be thankful for the great conductors. Without the maestros, orchestras would not be coordinated nor would they be as dynamic and expressive. Even in an acapella arrangement, one of the singers provides the lead for the other singers.

Hearing the perfectly balanced New York Philharmonic orchestra perform Franz Schubert's Symphony in C Major (the "Great") last weekend got me thinking about the art of conducting. Lorin Maazel is an amazing conductor -- he has had a bit of practice -- more than 150 orchestras in more than 5,000 opera and concert performances. He conducted the four part symphony with no score! The final movement alone is fifteen minutes of exuberance. He has obviously conducted this significant work many times before. He showed no signs of being tired of it. The Sony QRIO humanoid robot could conduct it a million times and not get tired of it. (read more)

Music April 9, 2004 11:27 PM

A Movin' On Triomphe

Although I have never lived there, I can see why people who live in New York City cherish it. All large cities have numerous challenges but they also have so much to offer to both residents and visitors. Twenty-one years ago a group of us -- four couples -- who were neighbors with lake houses in Pennsylvania the idea to take an excursion into Manhattan in the Spring to see a Broadway play and have dinner. This weekend we added number 21 to the list of weekends.

This year we added an extra day to the beginning of the weekend. It started with a drive into the city and then lunch at a restaurant on West 70th Street called Compass. They describe themselves as "modern American". The food was quite different and very good. Unfortunately, they only serve lunch in the cocktail lounge and the tables are barely large enough to hold one large plate. After lunch we took a walk to Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center to hear a performance by the New York Philharmonic. (read more)

Travels April 4, 2004 09:10 PM