Just Another Blog

Living vs. Existing

wakimoto — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 08:08:41 +0000

I went to Church with my girlfriend this past Sunday. I’m not a religious individual, but I do have an open mind about things, and want to learn about everything so I try to experience as much as I can.

And this past Sunday, I was reminded of a very fundamental difference by the Pastor. He mentioned how so many of us at a point in our lives stop living, and start existing.

I wish I never stop living.

What Issue Am I Solving?

wakimoto — Fri, 14 May 2010 05:43:05 +0000

So we’re getting briefed on a new product launch, and as I prep myself for the meeting, I started to list a bunch of questions for the particular product. Who are we talking to? What are our business goals? How big is the universe that we’re trying to target? Are we trying to get new customers? Are we trying to get people to stay with us? Or are trying to get new faces into a brand.

All this them made me think, what issue am i solving by introducing this product to the world?

Isn’t that the most fundamental question that all brands and businesses should be asking? Isn’t that how we stay relevant to our consumer/audience/community? At the end of the day, I think it’s important for all brands to have empathy for the consumer, cause as they say in the Japanese culture, the customer is king.

Grateful

wakimoto — Tue, 11 May 2010 06:44:36 +0000

Here’s another snapshot from my recent past that I’m grateful for. Took the picture using the Hipstamatic app (it’s awesome by the way) after a nice brunch I had on the beach.

My girlfriend and I biked down to the beach, locked out bikes and got a table to enjoy pancakes and the sand in between our toes. Life ain’t bad, ya know?

Glass Half Full (Part 2)

wakimoto — Mon, 10 May 2010 05:50:08 +0000

Just had a nice Sunday dinner with my girlfriend and was reminded how lucky I am to be living the life that I currently am living. Dinner was good, drinks were good, and company was good. I wish I never under-appreciate how good I have it.

Dear Coffee Machine Manufacturers

wakimoto — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 07:12:07 +0000

My wonderful girlfriend bought me a fancy shmancy coffee machine last Christmas. Given how much I love coffee, I already had one previously, but it was pretty basic. But my old one had a timer and clock on it, just like my new one does now.

It’s been about 4 months since I started using the new one, and I’ve come to realize that the clock is over 30 minutes off. And now that I think about it, I used to notice that my old coffee maker was also very bad at keeping time.

And I’ve come to this conclusion: People who make coffee machines should never make watches. Cause for some reason, they suck at keeping time.

Commonalities Among Cultures

wakimoto — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 21:39:48 +0000

Have you ever noticed that there’s a lot of overlap among cultures? I find it interesting that many of the societies that I’ve experienced have in their own way developed things that are very similar to things developed by other cultures. For example:

Every culture has invented or adopted sort of alcoholic beverage (beer, wine, sake, etc).

Every culture has invented or adopted some sort of greasy food to help absorb the alcohol later on in the night (pizza, ramen, dim sum, gyros, dim sum).

Every culture has invented or adopted some sort of religion.

Every culture has invented or adopted music.

Every culture has invented or adopted some sort of dance.

I know it’s a short list, but you get the point. I wonder if there are universal human needs that explain why these things exist. Random, I know, but I wanted to capture the thought before I lost it.

Mr. Brainwash

wakimoto — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 08:11:53 +0000

I just watch Banksy’s documentary, “Exit Through the Gift Shop” through a friend’s reco (thanks Scotty). Quite possibly one of the best documentaries that I’ve seen in a while – at least worthy of me writing about it on my blog a few hours after I saw it.

I’m no movie critic, but I enjoyed the hour and half that I spent in the theater. I don’t want to spoil the movie for anyone who’s about to go see it, so all I want to say is this…the joke is on us. Go check it out…it’s worth the time and money.

Nike’s Tiger Spot

wakimoto — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 23:22:50 +0000

It’s the day after the 2010 Masters…good on ya Phil! And I’m obviously a tad late to this conversation, but it seems like a week after Nike aired their new Tiger Woods spot, there’s still chatter online about this spot. I’m sure you’ve all seen it, but here it is for those who haven’t:

It’s definitely a polarizing ad…some love it, and some hate it. Lot of my friends and colleagues hate it. I personally like it. Not really from an executional standpoint, but more from a strategic perspective. I think it was a necessary and ballsy move by Nike. To me, it’s the start of the “cleansing” process. Before you fix anything, you first have to acknowledge that there is a problem…this ad does just that for me. It’s Nike bringing the spotlight to the elephant in the room so that we can all move on with our lives.

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Where Are You From?

wakimoto — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:27:26 +0000

I watched Food Inc. about a couple of months ago…great flick (if you haven’t seen it, definitely check it out). A lot of people that I’ve talked to seem to avoid it because they want to keep eating meat, but to me, the message was more about making sure we eat local rather than continue to feed the big businesses that don’t seem to care about the animals or the farmers who raise them.

Anyway, tonight I bumped into this website (http://whereismymilkfrom.com/) that allows you to track where your milk came from. It’s a great thought, and a great tool to make sure that the products we buy are actually supporting the local community. Wouldn’t it be great if you knew the origins of a lot of other things that you put into your body and be able to ask them (before you buy it) – where are you from?

Size and Quality

wakimoto — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 05:38:31 +0000

One question the company I work at always asked (as we expanded our business) was, “How big can we get without becoming bad?” Lately, that question has been at the forefront of a lot of people’s minds with all the Toyota recalls. I’ve always believed that those two qualities ARE mutually exclusive.

It’s very challenging to be both big and good. I guess it could depend on whether you’re in a service or product sector…technically machines could take over a lot of the operations and still produce volumes. But in most cases, growing seems to inherently lead to a dilution in talent, which subsequently leads to a decline in quality of your product and/or service. Here’s a Harvard Business Review article that takes a closer look at the situation at Toyota and does a better job of articulating this dilemma:

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/02/toyota_the_downside_of_hyper_g.html