It has been an amazing class/trip to Japan. I learned a lot about mobile consumer behavior and the cultural characteristics that drive some of the behavioral differences. In the end, if you boil the trip down to its base element(s), it all comes down to culture.  When I started this class, the equation I came up with for mobile consumer behavior was Psychology + Culture + Capability =...
After a brief stop at the Edo-Tokyo Museum. It was brief because the top three floors were closed! We then went back to Kyoto on the bullet train. Once we arrived we settled into the hotel (same rooms!) and then headed out to the Ginkaku-ji. After that we took a look at Heian Shrine. This is the shrine that Scarlett Johansson visited in Lost in Translation. The thing that’s amazing about...
So . . . tonight my students and I had the very good fortune of having dinner with Mr. Norio Murakami, the former president of Google Japan. We had a great time and he’s an amazing man. (I was introduced by one of my students.) We talked about privacy, AI (no matter what Elon says), the Internet of things and Japanese mobile culture. Mr. Murakami also happens to know some very famous people...
This morning we went to the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. This sounds like something that’s riddled with history but in fact, it isn’t. The palace is the working residence of the Emperor of Japan. (Yes. Japan has an Emperor and he’s much like the Queen of England in regards to power and responsibility.) This is going to sound stupid but the palace wasn’t much to see. After...
Today we started in Kyoto and ended up in Tokyo. In the morning, we visited the Kiyomizu-dera and SanjÅ«sangen-dÅ. We started to see more and more of the selfie sticks. (I guess the choice between genetically engineering people with longer arms or having them buy selfie stick, the stick makes more sense.) Also, when people take selfies in the US, they seem a little self-conscious. In Japan...
Here is another amazing example of data visualization from Foursquare. This one shows a comparison between New York and Tokyo and I saw this at #BigBoulder. Enjoy!
Teradadesign + Qosmo of Tokyo covered the facade of a building that when viewed through an iPhone app, shows ” virtual interactions”. (This is one of the ways I hoped this would go when I posted about QR codes and augmented reality being combined.) Enjoy!