Toyota

  • Before Telecommuting and Online Retailing,  we got Management by Walking Around . Then the gurus told us to “re-engineer” the corporation (Japanese influence). Then, Toyota was on the roll with Continuous Improvement (Al Gore was buying into this when trying to re-invent the US Government). True to its form, Toyota continuously improves its R&D, from EV racing…

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  • Dr Lloyd Tran never stops and hardly sleeps. For a right reason. He is an inventor at heart. He started out as a chemist. Then worked for huge corporations such as Monsanto. Then he invented and manufactured his own drug release device in Irvine, CA (right at the time companies started to look elsewhere to outsource…

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  • Faith in humanity

    A graduate of Penn State, I related well to the scenes from the Deer Hunter, set in an industrial town of Pennsylvanian. Smokestacks on the slope, familiar faces and friends and the “Welcome Home” sign for returning soldiers from a distant war. But unlike other wars before and since, this one was controversial.  It showed when the main character,…

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  • Easily swayed

    According to social scientists, any two people are only separated by 6 to 7 degrees of connection. Last week I put it to test. Surely enough, the quake victims in Japan somehow are separated from me by only three degrees. My niece’s friend had relatives who fled Japan and came to stay with them. Two short introductions and a short…

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  • Adjust your lens or change it, then you will see all kinds of things. Even the same things, but much clearer. The power of reframing. Organization or organism all need to self-examine at one time or another. For instance, after taking your shirts back from the cleaners, you might notice that even though they are…

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  • Kaizen

    In the 80’s, we saw many books about Japan e.g. Rising Sun, The Japan That Can Say NO. Now, the Most Admired Country list seems to say NO to Japan, and places it at number 5. Versace closed its door there after having sold to all the old people of the laggard group. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e5e6a886-b325-11de-ac13-00144feab49a.html (in…

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