Akucchanが世界をゆく

Presentation

Today’s presenter was Yuko. Currently she is studying immunology at a university. The topics were centered at state-of-the-art biotechnology. It was a little bit difficult for me to catch up with technical terms in biology, but I understood the essence. Her presentation was so good that we can see a part of the great advance of biology.

At first she talked about intestinal bacteria. Environment of intestine is strongly related to health of human body. Balance of intestinal bacteria is very important for immune system. And it is very useful to have fermented foods such as yogurt, natto, cheese, kimuchi, miso for keeping intestinal condition good. This kind of health management is called as probiotics.

Recently a study found that intestinal condition has a relationship with obesity (Ruth E, et al., Nature 444, pp.1022-1023 (21 December 2006) ). The energy consumption rate of obese people is worse than that of lean people. Suppose a person has a 100 kcal food. A lean person can consume 30 % of the energy and the rest of the energy, 70 kcal is stocked in his body. On the contrary an obese person can consume only 10 % of the energy and 90 % is stocked. And some researchers found that obese people have more bad bacteria in gut than lean people.

I have already had a piece of knowledge about probiotics. I recommended a book, “Recommendation of healthy gut life (Kenchou Seikatsu No Susume),” by Dr. Benno (I wrote about this book before ). Thanks to probiotics my gut condition seems to be much better than before. The difference is so apparent that I can distinguish that. My digestion condition has been improved much better than before since I started to have yogurt and dietary fibers like Mekabu and Natto (I also wrote about the effect before ).

We had an active discussion about this topic and enjoyed learning probiotics. And continuously she explained a little about cancer therapy while Akiko prepares her PC for discussion. Because she has only 5 minutes to speak, it was too tight to explain that for unfamiliar people like us. I would like to listen to her lecture in another chance.

Japan is leading R&D of bio-technology. I hope bio-industry will grow greatly to support Japanese economy.
Thank you, Yuko for your very informative presentation!

Discussion

Today’s discussion material is a video from The Economist.
“Vijay Govindarajan on innovation”
http://audiovideo.economist.com/

Vijay Govindarajan, an Indian economist, talked how difficult it is to execute ideal business plan in the emerging markets. Frugal innovation is required for companies to win in the emerging countries.
During today’s discussion, I realized a big weak point of my English skill. It is listening. Unfortunately I could hardly catch up with his talk, so I could not make myself active in the discussion. I was disappointed with myself. If we have a reading assignment, I can work well on the material and prepare well enough for discussion. In CC group I depended on Satoshi K. for group presentation too much. I have to apologize for my poor contribution. Sorry. Next time I will try to show good performance.

Assignment

No reading assignment.
Ryuta will be next presenter.

After class

We have already finished 8 lessons. We have only 2 lessons to go. Time goes so fast.
After lesson 9, I will go to Singapore with my family for fun. It is the first time for me to go abroad this year. Can I understand Singlish? I hope this trip be a good chance to show my big advance in English.

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Presentation

Shuma had a brief introduction of economics key word, “Framing Effect.”
Oh, what a coincidence!

This is the second time to listen this word in GBM. The last one was talked by HO-san in last semester. Today we had another presenter, Shuma who is an active university student. He explained the meaning with easy example so well that we can understand. Last time I mistook the meaning and made a strange question to HO-san. I really regret that. Because this is the second chance and I understood that word better, I made myself discuss to the point, I guess probably.

In my understanding, framing effect is a kind of psychological behavior that people take in economic decisions. People tend to prefer certain gain, but not to prefer certain loss.

For example, let’s think about two cases of \10,000 gain and loss.
[1] Gain case
A. You can gain \10,000 with 100%.
B. You can gain \20,000 with probability of 1/2, and \0 with 1/2.
Which option do you take?

[2] Loss case
A. You will lose \10,000 with 100%.
B. You will lose \20,000 with 1/2, and \0 with 1/2.
Which option do you take?

In an economic experiment, the result showed that 72% people took A for question [1], but on the contrary 78% people took B for question [2]. The former case is called positive frame and the latter is called negative frame. In positive frame, people prefer certain gain, but in negative frame, people avoid certain loss.

Yes, it is something psychological. In classical economics, people were not supposed to do such an inconsistent behavior, but to make rational decisions. Because classical economics believes rational activities of people too much, there will be some discrepancy between the economic model and the actual phenomena. Behavioral economics is a relatively new field of economics, which studies this kind of economic things.

I think surely he is a brilliant student. His specialty is economics and he is studying Game Theory, which is one of the hottest topics in economics. I can see from his talk that he is reading a lot of economic articles and papers. In my experience, most of students who studies economics and commerce are not so serious about their studies, but he is. I am really impressed with his diligent attitude and wide knowledge. I wish I had been like him in my university day.

Thanks to his good talk, we had a good discussion about an interesting topic in economics. Thank you, Shuma!

Discussion

Today’s reading assignment is from McKinsey report.
“Clouds, big data, and smart assets: Ten tech-enabled business trends to watch”
https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Clouds_big_data_and_smart_assets_Ten_tech-enabled_business_trends_to_watch_2647
This is a 14 page thick report. It took a certain time to read through that, but I enjoyed.
As the title says, this report introduces ten big trends in current global business. Most of them are caused by IT revolution.

Question:
Choose the top 3 important trends from this article, explain the reason, and tell your opinion.
My group members were Ryuta, Yuki, Shuma, and me.

Before Akiko asked us the question, I predicted what the question would be and prepared my answer in advance. And consequently my guess hit. I picked up three trends as: 4. The growing “Internet of Things”, 5. Experiment and big data, 9. Innovating from the base of the pyramid (BOP). BOP is one of the most interesting things in global business for me. But in our discussion we weight most on the impact of the trend for human life. Consequently we took three trends as 4, 2. Making the network the organization and 10. Producing public good on the grid.

Innovation of Internet has changed human life style and it is still going on. A lot of Internet communication tools are used widely in the world. For example Facebook, the biggest Social Networking Site (SNS) in the world, has over 500 million registered accounts which is close to 1/12 of the number of the world population. IT tools like Twitter, YouTube, iPhone are changing politics, business, culture, technology, and every aspects of human activities. This mega trend has just started and we will see further IT revolution near future. I hope we have a happy future with advanced technologies.

Assignment

We have no assignment this week. Next week we will watch some video report and discuss about the topic.
Presentation is assigned on Yuko. She said she will talk about her specialty, immunology. It sounds really exciting for me.

After class

Exactly IT is changing our lives. In some articles, this big trend is compared with historical changes like agricultural revolution in primitive age, industrial revolution in 19th century, and so on.

I was impressed with a series of the “Web” related books by Mochio Umeda. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, his latest book, “Learning on the web,” was really good to know how education is changing by Internet in the world. This is also one aspect of IT revolution. I really recommend my classmates and colleagues.

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Presentation
It is Yuki’s turn for this week’s presentation. Her job is related to environmental affairs. The title was “A thought of environment and my experience.” She introduced us her job briefly and told us what is like Environmental Management System (EMS).

Sustainable development is a key word for the global society in the 21st century. Governments, companies, local communities, every level of organizations have to think of what they can do for sustainable developments for themselves. Yuki is assisting companies to make environment reserve activities. EMS is the center of that. During EMS working, she found that it is difficult to measure the performance of environment activities. And then she realized that it is important to acquire data and to monitor the performance. Consequently she emphasized that Data Management System (DMS) is essential for effective EMS.Because I am really concerned with environmental issues, it was a really interesting presentation. Thank you for your kind presentation!

Discussion
Today’s topic is come from Entrepreneur.com. The title is, “2010 Trends to Watch.”
http://www.entrepreneur.com/trends/index.html

This report was written at the begging of this year and it forecasted the 10 and 1/2 big trends in the U.S. business fields, especially in entrepreneurship.
The subjects were:
1. Localize the 10 1/2 trends to Japan
2. Prioritize the trends, explain your reason and your plan

My team was the Star group. Yuki, Yuko, and Emiko joined my team. At first we talked the impressions of this article to each other. Among 10 1/2 trends, we picked up 3: Economic turmoil, Green power, and Education, and considered success growing plan of Japan.

According to the report, economic crisis in 2008 damaged every business both in U.S and Japan. But after 2 years, the current situations are different in each country. The U.S is gaining vigor through innovative business by entrepreneurship, but Japan is still struggling to get a clue to get away from the stagnation. Japan owns a lot of technologies that can lead global business. We can see good examples in energy, material, life science, information, and so on. Green power and regenerative bio-industry will be good candidates for future business core of Japan.

Flexible labor market is required, which will move talented work force from commodity business to innovative business. Life-time employment interrupts flow of labor force. And education for experienced business person is another requirement for the growing plan. Government should support people who want to learn new knowledge and skill more strongly. Re-education is needed.

That is the point of our discussion. It was a good exercise for me.

Assignment
The reading assignment is from McKinsey report again.
“Clouds, big data, and smart assets: Ten tech-enabled business trends to watch”
https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Clouds_big_data_and_smart_assets_Ten_tech-enabled_business_trends_to_watch_2647
This is thick one, 14 pages! You need take enough time to prepare. Of course I’ll do that!

After class
I have to apologize that I was late for updating this review. After I missed to do that last Saturday, I caught a cold and had no time. Now I’m uploading this blog on Thursday night. But let me adjust the uploading date to Nov. 13, Sat. I’ll make effort to update the lesson review on time.
See you next time!

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Presentation
Today it was Mei’s turn to make presentation. Now she is studying international affairs in a university. So she picked up a topic about an international issue. The title was “The Congo.” It was an informative presentation to consider the situation of Congo. Because most of Japanese don’t know much about that country, it is important to realize the situation at first.

Congo will be one of the most disastrous countries among African countries. The government system does not work well to secure citizens’ lives. People are suffering from poverty and violence. Although Congo has plenty of natural mineral resources like copper, cobalt, diamond, etc, they cannot make good business to sustain their livings. Gender discrimination is also one of big issues in that country. There are a lot of victims of rape. More than 40,000 incidents occurred in 2007. It is difficult to establish the government system which protects human right.

And health care issue is another problem in that country. HIV/AIDS is widely spreading. Because of lack of knowledge about HIV, they cannot stop HIV infection.United Nation is conducting peace keeping activity, but it needs much more time to settle the conflicts.

Because the country has a lot of issues, it is difficult for general person to find out a way to save their lives. I think it will be too risky to jump into that country to help the suffering people. It can be result in a miserable end in vain. The effective and feasible way to start activity for that country will be realizing the difficult situation. And then organization-level movement must be required.

Thank you, Mei for your informative presentation!

Discussion
This week’s reading assignment was,
“Lessons in Entrepreneurship and Wealth Building from the Developing World” Knowledge @ Wharton, Sep. 15, 2010.
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2588

We had two points to discuss.

1. Assessment of the four projects supported by Wharton school.
This article introduced four successful projects of societal entrepreneurship.
-Animal feed plant in Zambia
-Entrepreneurship education program in the United States
http://game.johnnymoney.com/
-Cookies production business in South Africa
http://www.khayacookies.com/
-Medical system in Botswana

2. Create one own project for societal wealth

I discussed with Emiko, Satoshi S., Shuma in the Star group. We made three criteria to assess the four societal activities: Impact, Profitability, and Sustainability. They were rated in 3 levels: 1 - not good, 2 – fair, 3 – good. According to the article and summary handout, we evaluated the animal feed plant business in Zambia as the best. The number of employees in the project amounts to over 100, and they are running 600 farmers to provide 2.5 million daily protein servings in that region. It can be evaluated in terms of local economy growth and health care problems.

But I think the information resource is not much enough to evaluate these activities fairly, the ranking does not mean so much. The important point will be what we can learn from these case studies. This article mentions about how to set the border point if an entrepreneur keep going or not. Before starting a new entrepreneur activity, they have to think about disengagement plan. To what extent can they stand for? Or will it worth to keep their activity? It is difficult to measure the performance of a societal activity. But they have to have some criteria to conduct any programs, because it will require resources such as human power, money and time, and secondly because a good result should be expected. If the program does not work, they have to withdraw it. I would like to talk much more about this point.

Emiko represented us to summarize our discussion. It was the first time for her to present in front of the classmate audience. But she did well. Good job!

Unfortunately we run out of time to discuss in the second point. So we will answer it next week. It is an extra homework.

Assignment
Next week’s reading assignment is coming from Entrepreneur.com. The title is, “2010 Trends to Watch.”
http://www.entrepreneur.com/trends/index.html
Although 10 months in 2010 have already passed, we can discuss about the trend forecast and assess if it was true or false. So let’s enjoy another discussion.

After class
Today I felt a little progress in my discussion skill. I made myself speak a little more fluently than before. The words and phrases came to my mind easier than before. Why? I think it is the learning effect of video lecture. Now I have been learning math with video lecture of MIT Open Course Ware for several days. Because the splendid teacher, Dr. Strang speaks fluent English with very easy-listening style, I’m learning his speaking style naturally. It is unanticipated but good side effect of learning video lecture. So I would like to recommend other classmates to take a look at that program.

Oh, and I have another thing to say.
I would like to call a get-together-party for this semester.
Next week I'll ask the classmates of their schedule.

OK, this is the end of my review this week.
See you next week!

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Presentation
Today’s presenter was Satoshi S. Because he studied economics, he picked up a piece of news from NY times for the presentation.
“Japan goes from dynamic to disheartened,” NY times, Oct. 17, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/world/asia/17japan.html
He introduced to us this article, and we discussed and reviewed it.
At first, he explained what GDP consists of from economic viewpoint.
GDP = Consuming + Investment + Government + Net Export
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9B%BD%E5%86%85%E7%B7%8F%E7%94%9F%E7%94%A3

In Japan consuming expenditure shares 60 % of GDP. So it is important to keep consuming large for domestic economy. But now Japanese people, especially young people hesitate to spend money due to shrinking economy of Japan. This article criticized the attitude of Japanese people who hate spending.

Based on his introduction, we considered the present situation and expectation of Japan’s economy. Because our classmates are at very center of young generation, discussion was stimulated. Most of us agreed to this article with that Japan economy is struggling and that consumer’s attitude is not good, but we don’t think young Japanese hate spending. They have wishes to spend money for a lot of reasons: tour, luxury items, hobby, real estate, car, raising children, etc. Then what does make the young hesitate to spend money?

I think there is psychological reason. Now it is difficult to hope rapid growth of Japan economy. Most of young Japanese people are pessimistic for future economy. It is not easy to expect increasing of income. They have to spend money in the controllable range. So they take austerity plan. If they have much money, the spending will be increased.

Japanese people tend to save money for future spending. Elderly people accumulate a lot of money on saving account. It is said that there are 1.5 quadrillion yen of saving in Japan. If this money is used effectively, it must stimulate the Japan economy. One of prospective action will be a policy that makes money shift from elderly generation to younger generation.

One of the biggest issues in Japan is declining birthrate and growing of elderly population. Because young people are pessimistic for spending, they hesitate to have children. That makes the problem worse. If the money that was saved by elderly people is spent for young generation, it will help for Japan to increase its next young generation. I think much more Japanese people should realize this issue and take some actions.

Discussion
Today’s reading assignment was as follows.
McKinsey Global Survey report, “The next environmental issue for business”

This article relates to biodiversity. Last night COP 10 in Nagoya was closed with an agreement for biodiversity preservation. This is very good time to discuss.
The discussion points were:
1. Projects to preserve diversity
2. How to implement such projects
I made the STAR group with Yuki and Mei. Because all the members are out of environment fields, we started from understanding of biodiversity and then considered what plan is prospective.

Industries such as pharmaceuticals, energy, food, and chemicals are directly related to biodiversity issues. A lot of products are coming from natural bio-materials. For example, Stevia, a chemical substance which is extracted from natural herb, has 200 times sweet of sugar and are used for various kinds of healthy products. If the biodiversity is destructed, these industries will be affected on their business. Including other reasons, it is important to save biodiversity for sustainable life of the world.

We concluded the discussion with an opinion that government should lead the action. A new regulation will be good to make companies save environment. The series of regulation for carbon emission are good example. Policy makers should take action for that. COP 10 is good opportunity to discuss for them to build the plan. And I think subsidies for saving ecosystem is good. Because there is limit of natural resource supply, artificial materials that substitutes of them will be expected. Government should support research and development of this kind of chemical and biological products.

Biodiversity is relatively new word for most of people, but it will not take so long time to be known in common. It is also one of the most important environmental issues in the world. For the beginning we have to know much more about that problem.

Assignment
The presentation work is assigned on Mei. She is the first girl of new comers who started to take this course. She is studying international affairs. I’m not sure if the topic has something with them, but looking forward to listening an interesting topic.

This week’s reading assignment is related to entrepreneurships in developing countries.“Lessons in Entrepreneurship and Wealth Building from the Developing World,” Knowledge @ Wharton, Sep. 15, 2010.
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2588

After class
Today the typhoon 14 was passing in day time. It had heavy rain and strong wind. Despite of bad weather we had 6 classmate attendances. After this lesson, I will attend a wedding party of my high school’s junior. I am sorry for that we have bad weather for happy wedding, but I believe he and his wife have strong happiness that can blow away the typhoon power. Congratulations on his wedding!

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Presentation
Today’s presenter was Satoshi K. He talked about his job and company. He is working for a stock exchanging company. He showed us a video that had been broadcasted recently in a TV show, which introduced his company. Because his talk was easy for us to understand, we had a good discussion on his work. Thank you, Satoshi, for your kind presentation. We really appreciate your effort to prepare for the presentation. It was a big contribution!

Discussion
Today’s reading assignment was as follows.
Tim Laseter, Casey Lichtendahl, and Yael Grushka-Cockayne, “Cleaning the Crystal Ball,” strategy + business, issue 59, pp.1 (2010)
http://www.strategy-business.com/article/10202?gko=770f7

The main topic of this article was forecasting for future events in business. Good forecasting is necessary for good planning of business operation. But there cannot be 100% perfect prediction, so a business person has to minimize the difference between forecasting and real result.

The discussion points were:
1. Identify the important issue from this article.
2. How can an organization overcome blind spots in forecast?

My discussion team had Emiko, Shuma, Yuki, and me. First we discussed about the contents. Since this week’s article was easier to understand than that of a week before, we could have good transactions of our opinions.

Through reading the assignment, we built a flow of forecasting operation like a PDCA cycle as following.
1. Pick up driving forces: consider what kind of data is needed to predict the business planning. Driving forces are factors which influence on the business activity.
2. Collect data: data and information of driving forces will be collected.
3. Analyze data: data and information are analyzed to derive some trends in the past.
4. Forecast: future business trends are forecasted based on analysis. And the business operation programs are planned.
5. Operate: business project will be operated according to forecasting.
6. Check: the performance of operation is checked. The difference between forecast and result should be fed back to plan and amend another new program.

Yuki talked our discussion representing our team. She explained our discussion points above very well. She was very good at arranging English expressions to make herself understood. We really appreciate her job. Thank you, Yuki!

Assignment
Satoshi S. will present next week. And the reading assignment is below.
McKinsey Global Survey report, “The next environmental issue for business”
http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com

After Class
I think new classmates are getting used to have discussion in the class. In the beginning of the semester the discussion was a little bit strained or clumsy because we did not know each other well. But during 3 lessons in the new semester we are understanding each other, so discussions can be done more smoothly than before. I think it is very good thing for us. Because our class has big weight on discussion, cooperation is required to facilitate discussions. I am very glad to have this feeling.

Although today I could not attend the lunch session, because I had another appointment with my family, but there were 5 or 6 classmates to go lunch. Oh, I miss the lunch session! I wonder how they enjoyed the lunch. I would like to attend that next week.

That is all for today.
See you next time!

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Presentation
The first time presentation in this class is assigned on me.
I was wondering what topics I should talk about during this week, but I decided to talk about my job. The title was “Introduction of opt-telecom industry.” At the beginning I explained that internet access is expanding in the world, which increases data traffic. A huge amount of data traffic is going through optical fibers. I showed a sample of optical fiber and explained the trend in this industry.

After my presentation, I asked classmates if they have questions. But there were a few questions. Their reaction was not good. The topic seemed too difficult to discuss. Although I made some effort to prepare for the presentation, I should have taken care more about the story. It's my fault, I'm sorry for classmates.

Discussion
This week’s reading assignment was from The Economist as below. The topic is about global economy.
The Economist, “How to Grow,” Oct. 7, 2010
We discussed about:
1. the main idea of the article, and
2. our viewpoint of the main idea.

This article explains a lot about economy in the developed countries; U.S., west Europe, and Japan. After economic crisis, these countries are struggling to recover their strength. This article is titled as “How to grow,” but I cannot find any concrete idea, how the developed countries should do. So it was very difficult for me to discuss about.

Satoshi K. led our discussion well. He pointed out the main causes of economic downturn as decreasing population, slow growth, and deflation. These factors relates to each other to make the recession for long term.

Government has two options to overcome this hard situation; austerity plan and stimulus plan. Because the developed country like Japan already has a lot of debt, it is difficult to increase its spending to stimulate its economy. But on the other hand it is also difficult to take austerity plan, because it will affect its economy to recover fine condition. Government should take balance on what field it spend money and on what field it reduce its spending.

Assignment
The presentation work is assigned on Satoshi S. I’m looking forward to listening to his talk.
This week’s reading assignment is here.
Strategy + Business, “Cleaning the Crystal Ball ”
It relates to business forecasting.

After class
We tried a Chinese restaurant about the school for the first time.
Both of taste and price were good. We found good one, it can be counted in our list.
Today we have only 3 members to come lunch. It will be good if there be more members. I would like to ask classmates next time.
See you next!

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Before Lesson
A new quarter term of Global Business Management (GBM) in Nichibei Kaiwa Gakuin has started today. I will make effort to learn English as I did in the last semester. Of course, I will keep reporting the contents of the class every week. So please keep watching my blog report!

Cross-Introduction
This term we have got 9 members registered, and 7 classmates attended today. For the first class of GBM fall 2010, we had personal introduction. But it was not self-introduction as usual case, it was cross-introduction. Two classmates make a pair and they make interview to each other.

An interview includes 5 factors:
1. Name
2. Profession
3. Purpose to take the GBM course
4. Interests and Hobbies
5. Sales point
After interview, one classmate introduces the partner for the class.

Akiko (our teacher) explained the reason of having cross-introduction that we can know each other more deeply through interview with the partner. It requires good understanding of the partner for introduction to all other classmates.

My partner was Hisashi. It was the first time for me to have cross-introduction, so I made myself concentrated on the interview. Fortunately because Hisashi introduced himself to me very well, I could make a good introduction to the audience. We enjoyed the cross-introduction.

Discussion
Today’s topic was China. We watched two pieces of TV news about China and discussed.
1. World view: Is China the next superpower? (CNN)
2. China’s territorial claims (The Economist)

Akiko asked us questions.
1. Will China have superpower in the world? And how does it impact on Japan?
2. Is there any good solution to the territorial issues for China and neighbor countries?

It is very difficult to answer both of questions. In the first TV news, a Chinese-American professor answered to CNN that it is very difficult to predict precisely what the China’s situation is like 10 years later, because there are many issues for China to keep current good economical situation in the future. Even as a university professor in politics and economy it is difficult to predict, it is much more difficult for general citizen like us to answer. But we can discuss about the topic anyway.

The class was divided to two for discussion; Star group and CC (Cash Cow) group as always. And I joined to the Star group. All of star group members except me agreed that China will take superpower. Actually I am positive to that China’s power is increasing in the global business, but I disagreed with the positive idea intentionally to stimulate the discussion.

We picked up good terms and bad terms in the relationship between China and Japan which can be seen from present point. All we think China will increase its power in global economy, but there are a lot of political issues. Japan will have good influences by China in business like touring market in Japan, exporting of Japanese products. But territorial issues and intellectual property issues should be solved for better and more stable relationship with each other.

Assignment
Presentation work of next week is assigned on me. I will be the lead-off man. I feel some tension to be the first presenter, but I would like to make effort to contribute to the class.

This week’s reading assignment is from The Economist as below. The topic is about global economy.
The Economist, “How to Grow,” Oct. 7, 2010

After class
Our new class is made up by younger people than the previous class. I was mostly average old in the last class, but now I am at the oldest generation in this class. The class got younger. It seems that the class mood is changed more active and energized. I have to make myself to catch up with young powers. I would like to absorb new knowledge and ideas from young classmates. It will be fun.

Unfortunately I missed to ask the classmates to have lunch. So lunch talk was called off today. I hope we have that next week.

OK, see you next week!

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Before Lesson
Time passes amazingly fast. It was the last of 10 lessons in our course, “Global Business Management (GBM).” Fortunately we had a good teacher and good classmates. I have enjoyed learning English in our class. I miss my class ending. But if one meets someone, he must say good-bye someday. It’s “Ichi-Go-Ichi-E” in Japanese.

Presentation
The last presenter was Satoshi. S.
The title was “Introduction of Finance.”
As he is working for a financial company, he explained the basic of finance briefly.
Especially in Japan, most people are afraid from financial affairs. They think investment is too risky. But he explained the effect of money interest and its benefit by easy example. It was very easy to understand and a good guidance to the beginner.

According to his introduction of finance, we discussed about housing. Which is the better to rent or to buy a house? If one chooses buying, it will be a heavy burden for him to pay the interest of loan. On the other hand, can you keep paying the housing rent after retirement? Someone said that just only taking money into account, mostly they are same. But in my opinion, life planning is different from each other, so one needs to consider which is better for him.

Financial affairs relate to all of our life that needs money. Learning finance is very useful to enrich our life.

Discussion
We watched the following three video reports and discussed about “How to Succeed in Turbulent Markets.”
1. McKinsey’s interview with a Dutch oil company Schlumberger’s CEO, Andrew Gould
2. CNN news: “Markets Gripped by Uncertainty”
3. CNN news: Trends of global economics

And we answered to three questions:
1. What attribute is important to compete in the global economy?
2. In light of the economic downturn, what do you believe are organizations’ priorities in terms of improving agility?
3. In your view, what are the critical traits of an agile business?

The interview with Andrew Gould was interesting for me. Now oil industries are suffering from economic downturn, as we discussed about that in Lesson 2 . Gould said he has silver lining in innovation. He emphasizes on R & D in oil engineering. Russia has very good technology in this field, so Schlumberger is running a laboratory in Russia. And China is catching up, so they are looking for opportunities to invest in China.

Global business changes the world rapidly. Innovation is the driving force. And a company needs agility to survive in the global competition. It is the same thing in any field of global business. It was a good topic to discuss, I really enjoyed it.

After Class
We planned a party after the lesson, but most of us were busy and could not attend. So we decided to have an off-the-class party other day. I will the organizer.

Date: October 1 Friday, 2010
Time: 19:00
Meeting site: SL Hiroba, Shinbashi Station
Place: somewhere in Shinbashi (To be determined)
Who is coming: Kazuhisa, Michiyo, Satoshi. S., Takeshi

If you want to come, please come to the meeting site directly. I will be happy if you let me know in advance. If you don’t have contact information to me, please contact to another classmate to come, or make a comment on this article. I will make contact to you with some way.

Acknowledgement
Finally I would like to say thank you for all of our colleagues.
Akiko, our great teacher, helped us a lot to learn high-level English.
It was a really short term, but we made an intense work on improving our English skills. We enjoyed the time. Thank you, Akiko!
And my great classmates helped me a lot to keep the motivation. All of you are quite busy at your own jobs, but you made good efforts to attend the course. There are a lot of things to learn from your positive attitude. Thank you, classmates!
And I cannot forget big support of my family. Every Saturday I spent time at the school. My wife, Sayu and my son, Keita encouraged me a lot to attend the class. I really appreciate your kind understand. Thank you, Sayu and Keita!

This is the end of my review of GBM 2010 summer. But I will continue the lesson in the next term, and keep updating the review of GBM lesson. So please come to my site and enjoy it. Thank you!

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Beginning
The chairman of Tokyo & Nichido Fire Insurance, Shigeo Ishihara, wrote an article in the evening paper of Nihon Keizai Shinbun yesterday. He said that he had learned English at Nichibei Kaiwa Gakuin (NKG) for several years. What a good coincidence! Such an elite business person went to NKG! But there is not only him, but a lot of the Japanese elites had been to NKG in fact. NKG has good history in English education. I wish I could be one of them, but it's…

Hmm, I have to forget about it. Let’s move on to the today’s lesson.

Presentation
Today’s presenter was Satoshi K. The topic was the trend of stock exchange companies. He explained that competition among stock exchange markets are getting hard internationally. Stock exchange companies are trying to attract investors to put their money on their markets. In terms of functionality, the system of Japanese stock exchange market is behind those of the advanced countries such as the U.S., Britain, and other European countries. Plus there are too many regulations in Japan. Those issues make the Japanese market lose its competitiveness. Japanese stock exchange companies have to catch up with the global trends and make efforts to renew the system.

Satoshi’s presentation was good, but I don’t know much about stock exchange. So I could not make good questions to his talk. I asked about the relationship of financial engineering with stock exchange, but it was out of the topic. I’m sorry, it was a mistake. I need to learn more about the basics of economy.

Discussion
Today’s topic was “Entrepreneurship.”
We watched 4 video records of CNN broadcasting. Here is the topic list.
1. $50,000 for a bright idea
2. Do-It-Yourself job creation
3. Virtual stock market for sports
4. ArabNet sparks young entrepreneur
All of them are related to young entrepreneur. How do they gather investments? Is the investment environment good enough for them to gather money? Is it feasible for them to establish their innovative business? We discussed such questions and considered about the entrepreneur situations in Japan.

To be honest, it was difficult for me to discuss about these topics. It was not difficult to understand the contents of videos, but it was difficult to predict if the entrepreneur business work well or not. So I could not get into today’s discussion well. I feel bad about that.

Assignment
We don’t have any assignment this week too.
The presenter will be Satoshi S. next.

After class
Today I felt struggling in the lesson. I had energy and motivation as always, but I could not make myself participate in discussions well. I’m not sure the reason, but I guess it is because I am short of English communication skill. When the topics of discussion are out of my knowledge, and I’m not prepared for that, I cannot make good comments or sometime I jump out of the topic. It is not good of me, and it should be improved.

Every lesson I submit a writing homework to Akiko, which is not mandatory work, but I do it by myself. And Akiko kindly checks the work and makes me good comments. It is very helpful.

Today I wrote about Akiko’s evaluation of my presentation. As I said in my blog last week, it was very great work of her, which helps us to understand our English skills. In the report, I reviewed her evaluation and considered how to improve my skill. I think I’m still under development of English thinking brain. My brain cannot respond fast in English. I need more practices in all of communication skills, speaking, writing, reading, and listening.

I wish I could use English as well as Japanese someday. The goal is far away from here. But Chairman Ishihara said in the article yesterday, “Struggling with English lasts forever.” Yes, you are right. I also keep learning as most Japanese do.

To classmate
We will have an Uchiage party (job-well-done party?) next week, but the schedule is not fixed. We will decide that after the class. Please come together if you have time!
OK, see you the last lesson!

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