We arrived in Osaka today a little after 4pm. We flew in on the new Boeing 787. This is an amazing plane! Power supply for my laptop. Recharger for my iPhone and windows that dim to your preferred brightness. I got so much done that I wanted them to take a couple more laps around the earth. When we got in, I think we all underestimated the fact that we have zero language skills when it comes to...
The first half of the course was spent defining the mobile landscape and how consumers were using it. The last part of the class had us reviewing Japan. That is to say, reviewing Japan’s economy, government, culture and tech. In summary, things are very complicated and are tied to the past and the need to embrace the future probably more so than any other country in the world. We also had two...
This was the first class I’ve ever taught where I had students that weren’t necessarily there to learn about the subject. They were there to go to Japan first and the class was a second consideration. This meant that my delivery of the material changed. I felt obligated to sell them on why the material was important based on their area of focus. I’m not sure if they noticed it, but it felt...
This may be the longest post in the history of the Internet. It may break it. Ideally this would have been done the day I taught the class but this quarter was exceptionally busy. In fact, the last time I was that busy was during grad school while working a full time job. I was a human piñata this quarter. But below is an outline of what material I covered during the class. Intro – The first...
This was a challenge. It is relatively easy to interview people to get them to answer simple questions. Qualitative interviews are more than that. The goal was to get people to open up about how they used their smartphones and then get them to think about – and then convey – why they used them in those ways. This is no small task. The biggest hurdle for most is to get interviewees to...
Along with qualitative data, my goal was to collect quantitative data in the form of a survey. Developing the raw questions was relatively easy but refining them to a point where anyone could take the survey with ease, took some doing. I didn’t have much experience in this level of refinement and was too close to the subject to refine it. I enlisted Dr. Baack (Nope. That’s not him on the...
Data collection was arguably the most important part of the class. Without data it would be impossible to discuss the differences between the US and Japan in regards to mobile consumer behavior. As I mentioned before I wanted qualitative and quantitative data to provide a more complete picture so I set about buying lunch for my PhDs in marketing and picking their brains about what not to do. The...
Now that I had created my class, I needed to develop a project for my students to complete during the course. Since we were studying consumer behavior, data collection and analysis would be essential. I also wanted to be sure we collected/analyzed both qualitative and quantitative data. This would provide a deeper understanding of how people were using their devices. I wanted this data to paint a...
Two years ago I walked into my Chair’s office and shared an idea with her about two travel classes I had in mind. One was to Brazil to study the differences between the US and Brazil when it came to social media use. Brazil is has a profoundly social culture (read this) and I was curious to vet the differences. My other goal was to travel Japan to study the differences in smartphone usage...