Produced by JETRO Yamagata Last update 2008.11.17 This report contains Japanese characters, which may not be viewable by some computers. ********************************************************************* 2008.11.17 Venture Business Front Line - No. 126 "Barack Obama" by Edward Kuroki Senator Barack Hussein Obama II was elected as the 44th President of the United States on November 4th. The historical and social significance of this moment is enormous not only in the U.S., but also in other parts of the world (please remember Mr. Nelson Mandela in South Africa). The psychological impact is particularly noticeable among many minority Americans. Even small children are excited to recite his name at schools hoping for the (new) United States of America (perhaps since his last name "Obama" is short and easy to pronounce!). Thomas Friedman, the "Foreign Affairs" columnist for The New York Times, published an inspiring article titled "Our long Civil War is Over - let the reconstruction begin" in The Salt Lake Tribune.[1] In this article, he confirms that the "Obama Effect" is real and reminded us of the mentality that "Everything really is possible in America." On the other side of the world, language played an unexpected role in the Obama campaign -- without indicating any political connections. While America was about to change its history by electing the first black President, the City of Obama (meaning "little beach" using two Chinese characters) in the Fukui Prefecture of Japan supported Senator Obama's campaign simply because of a phonetic accident. Senator Obama's family name is believed to derive from a Luo name (male) from Western Kenya derived from "obam," meaning "bending" or "leaning" [2], and has nothing to do with the name of the City of Obama itself. Nonetheless, numerous Obama goods such as T-shirts, Japanese traditional cakes, etc., were sold in the City of Obama, and "Obama Girls" (referring to the female supporters for Senator Obama from the City of Obama) are scheduled to do Hawaiian Hula dances in front of the White House after Mr. Obama's Inauguration Speech. Furthermore, a statue of Mr. Obama is scheduled to be placed in front of the city hall. From both linguistic and historical perspectives, one thing that can be said (without any wordplay) is that if "our long Civil War is over" as Thomas Friedman pointed out, America has truly become one united country. In the past, the phrase "the United States" was treated as plural (like "the United States are" instead of "the United States is") before the end of the American Civil War (1861-1865).[3] Although it ended politically, the war lingered socially and psychologically, but now seems to have finally been resolved through the election of Senator Obama as the first African-American President of the United States. America will never be the same again, which means that the world will never be the same. I wish Mr. Obama a very successful next four to eight years of Presidency, and hope that the U.S. would further unleash the power of minorities. [1] http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_10909111 [2] http://wiki.name.com/en/Obama [3] http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002663.html Contact: Edward Kuroki kuroki@validtechnology.com http://www.validtechnology.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: Editorial and research assistance was provided by Elizabeth Berlik, Freyja Sanger and Michiko Kuroki. 【日本語要約】 アメリカ合衆国新大統領誕生 米国時間で2008年11月4日、バラック・フセイン・オバマ・ジュニア合衆国上 院議員が44代大統領として当選しました。1861-1865年の南北戦争後も長く尾 を引いていた公民権をめぐる内戦に終止符を打ったと言える出来事でした。歴 史的に「the United States (合衆国)」は南北戦争が1865年に終わるまで複数 形として使われていました。現在のように単数形として使われるようになった のはそれ以後です。ニューヨークタイムズ紙外交分野コラムニストであるトマ ス・フリードマン氏が11月5日付けThe Salt Lake Tribune紙に掲載した記事で、 「米国の南北戦争は今やっと終わった。」と述べています。オバマ氏の当選に より、単数形としてのアメリカ合衆国がついに誕生したことになります。今後 米国は（拡大が予測される）少数民族による活躍と貢献により、新たな未来を 切り開いて行くことになると思います。現在抱える深刻な経済危機問題も必ず 克服する資源と力が備わっているのではないでしょうか。 バリッド・テクノロジー・グループ代表 黒木嗣也 ( くろき・つぐなり ) kuroki@validtechnology.com www.validtechnology.com ********************************************************************* 2008.10.15 Venture Business Front Line - No. 125 "In Vitro Meat" by Edward Kuroki One of the concerns of parents who have a child -- hereinafter simply referred to as "she" -- in college is worrying whether her daily eating habits are healthy. Even if she is living in a dormitory and supposedly having "good meals," it is difficult to assume the level of cleanness and safety of the food that she is putting in her mouth. If she belongs to any of the following special categories such as lacto-ovo vegetarian, vegan (who does not consume even eggs, dairy and honey), lactose intolerant, anemic, etc., the worry increases because parents wonder if she is taking in a sufficient amount of protein and other important nutrients every day. After all, "You are what you eat." What if she is a standard meat eater? I wonder if she realizes the potential physical and psychological risks of consuming meats - if not organic - raised and treated with innumerable chemicals including cancer-causing nitrates [1] and synthetic growth hormones. Please remember that some of these substances are absorbed differently into human bodies depending on how the meats are prepared, and could cause less or more damages to us. Does she also realize that it takes up to 8kg (17.6 lbs) of animal feed to produce 1kg (2.2 lbs) of beef (it takes less for pork, chicken, milk or eggs - between 2kg (4.4 lbs) and 6kg (13.2 lbs) ? [2] If she is concerned about the global environmental and energy issues, such consumption is an issue that needs closer examination. Whether she is a vegetarian or a meat-eater, the level of awareness on food related issues seems to be low. At most schools and colleges, health education courses (i.e., how to eat and exercise properly and regularly, how to meditate, etc.) are not required, though much of that information is free and readily available via the Internet and at most public libraries.[3] It is one of those daily routines that is difficult to remember and practice unless required or told regularly. It might be something that should have been taught to her carefully before she left for college, which, unfortunately, most parents fail to do. Given that the average family relies on takeout and microwaved meals, it is increasingly unlikely that proper nutrition is something most families are aware of, let alone teaching their children. A recent USDA analysis indicates "food label use is lower today than in 1995, especially for adults ages 20-29."[4] What does this information imply? Have people started to blindly trust what their food labels are telling them? The problem is not simple. Food labels are complicated and confusing enough to most people, and sometimes misleading. Remember that REAL dangers are not on the label; the real danger lies behind the food production processes and distribution systems. More troubling issues are the recent outbreaks of tainted food which have been striking not only the U.S. but also many countries in Asia, including China and Japan. The current case of Chinese melamine --contaminated milk formula--has put thousands of babies and children at risk.[5] Such contamination is not limited to milk formula. It was also found in ham, sausage, and many other processed products, and is still circulating (hopefully not on college campuses) through distributors and many stores whose first priority is "low-cost (low-moral) food." For those who are not familiar with the danger of melamine and its correlated incidents, please check "Interim Melamine and Analogues Safety/Risk Assessment" provided by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.[6] Aside from contamination scares, many people are concerned with the inherent chemicals, additives, and preservatives in food at large. The United States Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is an agency that conducts various tests for such substances like antibiotics, sulfonamides, pesticides and environmental chemicals.[7] The International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS) as part of the World Health Organization (WHO), as well as many other domestic and international organizations, are engaged in a wide range of efforts to study the safety of such items.[8] It is generally understood that man-made chemicals can be found in almost every living organism on the planet; however, most people seem to agree that the introduction of such chemicals are harmful. Any solution? Shouldn’t this type of knowledge be included in a college general education course? After all, you don’t want to be what you eat if you are not eating right !! One possible answer which might help lessen our (and students') intake of chemical-ridden meat, and perhaps lessen the strain on the plant is In Vitro Meat. "PETA Offers $1 Million Reward to First to Make In Vitro Meat" and the contest details are mentioned at [9]. PETA stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which is the world's largest animal rights organization with more than 2.0 million members and supporters. "In Vitro meat, also known as laboratory-grown meat or cultured meat, is animal flesh that has never been part of a complete, living animal [10]" Though it is still scientifically and morally challenging, the First International In Vitro Meat Symposium was held at the Norwegian Food Research Institute in Norway on 9 - 11 April of this year.[11] Many publicly available articles suggest that it is only several years away before we might be eating In Vitro burgers or chicken, but they point out that much more funding and creative engineering would be needed to accelerate the present research and development. If this feat is accomplished without using any harmful chemical substances, it could surely solve many food, energy, and environment related problems. One less concern for the next generation! I highly recommend an article titled "The Trouble with Meat" written by Michael Bond published on 24 June 2008 in the Institute of Engineering and Technology magazine.[12] [1] http://www.organicconsumers.org/foodsafety/processedmeat050305.cfm [2] These calculations were indicated by multiple sources including (Note 12). [3] http://www.nutrition.gov/nal_display/index.php?info_center=11&tax_level=1 [4] http://www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/September08/Findings/NutritionLabels.htm [5] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4790866.ece [6] http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/melamra.html [7] http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Science/Chemistry/index.asp [8] http://www.who.int/ipcs/food/en/ [9] http://www.peta.org/feat_in_vitro_contest.asp [10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vitro_meat [11] http://invitromeat.org/content/view/15/34/ [12] http://kn.theiet.org/magazine/issues/0811/trouble-with-meat.cfm Contact: Edward Kuroki kuroki@validtechnology.com http://www.validtechnology.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: Editorial and research assistance was provided by Elizabeth Berlik, Freyja Sanger and Michiko Kuroki. 【日本語要約】 インビトロ（In Vitro）人工培養肉 今年4月9-11日ノルウエーで世界初の培養食肉国際会議（ヨーロッパとアメリ カからの参加者が主）が開催されました。その直後4月21日PETA(PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS) - 世界で200万人以上の会員と支持者を 保有する動物保護団体 - は2012年6月30日までに人工的に培養された肉を必要 な許可を取得して最低米国10州で商業化した個人・団体に100万ドルの賞金を 与える発表を行いました。非常に厳しい選考基準だと思いますが、汚染された 食べ物が出回る中、また深刻化するエネルギー問題を抱える中、分野を越えた 技術を駆使する良い機会ではないでしょうか。1キロの牛肉を得るためには8キ ロの飼料、豚肉・鶏肉・牛乳・卵だと2キロから6キロの飼料が必要と言われる ように、これらの食料品を供給する為には、その何倍もの穀物とエネルギーが 必要です。同時にこれは環境汚染と破壊にもつながります。開発途上国でもこ れらの消費量が近年増加して世界的な穀物不足と高騰にも影響し始めました。 最近の子供達は満たされた食生活の中で育っていますが、反面、学校では様々 な食品添加物・肉類に含まれる化学物質などのことは教えられていません。人 は皆食べるものから作られる、健全な体に健全な心は宿る事を認識して、子供 達に徹底した食生活指導と食物・環境・エネルギーの関係などを教える必要が あるのではないでしょうか。 バリッド・テクノロジー・グループ代表 黒木嗣也 ( くろき・つぐなり ) kuroki@validtechnology.com www.validtechnology.com ********************************************************************* 2008.09.01 Venture Business Front Line - No. 124 "Information Governance" by Edward Kuroki An astonishing article titled "Who Will Control the Internet?"　by Kenneth Neil Cukier was published in Foreign Affairs , November/ December 2005, with the type of information that I was unable to openly discuss when I was involved in an Internet start-up company (let's call it "Company A") as the Director of Business Development. Company A, headquartered in Boston, was trying to introduce a global internet traffic control and e-commerce content distribution system, and had over two hundred employees at the turn of the millennium. The ever so controversial information in this article declared that the Internet was and still is being controlled by a small number of people who can turn on or off part of (or all) of the Internet by doing something technically very simple. My job at Company A was to bring in money by convincing multiple investors that the Internet and its business model were strong and sound. The fact is that, upon joining Company A, I was able to quickly conclude the significance of how politically and technically fragile the Internet is. I advise my reading audience to learn these often overlooked situations which we have become heavily dependent upon: 1. Domain name of addresses - who decides? 2. Internet protocol numbers - why up-to-12-digit codes? 3. Root servers - why are there only 13 of them in the world? 4. Various technical standards - who is winning this game? For illustration, I will use the recently ended Beijing Summer Olympics 2008. China has a population of 1,330,044,605 (excluding Hong Kong and Macao {Beijing - population 7,724,932}) and 253,000,000 Internet users as of June 2008 according to Internet World Stats (1). The Olympics were broadcast daily on the television, but many people have enjoyed watching the games via the Internet as well -- over 1.4 billion Internet users in the world. Many of these internet sites have domain names ending with suffixes like ".com" or ".cn" for China. But what parties decide these domain names, and who controls them? Imagine the potential chaos if someone capable of altering domains changed them and limited worldwide access to dependent sites. For a further disturbing situation, consider the fact that root servers throughout the world are limited to only 13, based on how the internet is technically connected (2). Ten of these servers are in the U.S. and the remainder are located in Amsterdam, Stockholm, and Tokyo. According to the Population Clocks (as of 19:43 GMT (EST+5) Aug 24, 2008), there are 6,718,971,335 people in the world (3), and almost one fifth of the world population is Chinese and close to one fifth of the world's internet users are in China, but no root-server is located in China. Why (assuming people realize how crucial this issue is) and what is China doing about it? Kenneth Neil Cukier referred to his question (Who will control the Internet?) as "Washington's attempt to settle a crucial problem of twenty-first-century global (Internet) governance." He summarized this situation as a modern version of the Monroe Doctrine by pointing out the fact that a private-sector nonprofit organization called the "Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)" headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, controls these crucial points (4). In other words, the authority over this organization would be under the United States government as long as the present internet exists. If this is a type of situation where people can argue over the Internet Governance, many other issues come into play in which "Governance" can and will determine how honestly and how well a society or organization is being operated. "Corporate Governance" as defined in the form of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (5) and eDiscovery (6), etc., all of which require some sort(s) of ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning (7) to prove or disprove its contents cannot be operated (at least most parts) without relying on the Internet. This trend is most likely to accelerate more as these solution providers enter into domestic and foreign markets. The purpose of this short article was not to bring fear among people (including myself) of becoming so dependent on the Internet and many FREE "Cloud Services" (like Yahoo, Google, FaceBook, etc.) even to conduct important proprietary business for private or public organizations. I wonder how many people actually read the user's agreement, but it includes a clause that users' content can be shut down or denied access to without users' knowledge at any time -- exactly the way that countries could lose Internet access by someone deleting domain names' suffixes like "jp" (for Japan) or "ru" (for Russia). We need to think what each individual can do to harmoniously live with those who have been collecting and using our (personal and non- personal) data while we use those free services - including the Internet (which was developed as ARPANET - Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, a U.S. Department of Defense Program) on October 29, 1969. No one in the world pays for the use of it. But the U.S. will and shall maintain its control over it for political and technological reasons -- unless someone comes up with alternative solutions to the presently existing Internet. How about pen and paper? (1) http://www.internetworldstats.com/ (2) http://www.root-servers.org/ (3) http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html (4) http://www.icann.org/ (5) www.sec.gov/about/laws/soa2002.pdf (6) Please refer to Venture Business Front Line - No.123 (7) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_resource_planning Contact: Edward Kuroki kuroki@validtechnology.com http://www.validtechnology.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: Editorial and research assistance was provided by Elizabeth Berlik, Freyja Sanger and Michiko Kuroki. 【日本語要約】 誰でも気軽に使っているインターネットは、米国と旧ソビエトの冷戦時代に米 国国防省が開発したAPARNETが始まりです。(自分も含め）米国市民の血税で開 発されたこの技術は今や私たちにとって、誰も技術使用料を払うことなく、毎 日欠かすことの出来ない存在となってしまいました。恥ずかしながら自分も、 インターネットがなかったら大規模なERPを使用する仕事が出来なくなり、生 活が危うくなってしまいます。ところが、「知らぬが仏」とはこの事なのでし ょうか。このインターネット、実は非常に僅かな人達の手によって使用可能に なっているのです。Domain name of addressesを誰が決めるのか、Internet protocol numbersはなぜ12桁なのか、Root serversと言われる物はなぜ世界に 13個しかないのか等、不思議な実態を認識せざるを得ません。「情報を制する ものは、世界を制する」と言っても過言でない時代に、このインターネットは アメリカのモンロー主義に守られて存在しているのです。オリンピックを終え た中国等は、この体制に必死の抗戦を続けていますが、現実的に今使われてい るインターネットに代わる手段が開発されて世界的に普及されない限り対抗策 はないのです。さらに、ソーシャル・ネットワーク、さらに、例えばGoogleが 提供する様々な（Cloud Computingと言われる）情報共有サービスも、利用者 に断ることなく一方的にサービスを切断される可能性があるのです。現在書道 が学校の授業から無くなってきています。感受性に富んだ子供達・人間を育て るには、キーボードとモニターの世界に頼るよりも、指先と頭を使い紙に思い を書く習慣を取り戻すべきではないかと思います。 バリッド・テクノロジー・グループ代表 黒木嗣也 ( くろき・つぐなり ) kuroki@validtechnology.com www.validtechnology.com ********************************************************************* 2008.08.01 Venture Business Front Line - No. 123 "Challenges of ONKO CHISHIN - Consulting the past if you want to learn about the future" by Edward Kuroki Charles T. Maxwell, one of the most respected energy analysts, forecasts 12 to 15 dollars for a gallon of gasoline "in a few years" with oil prices at $180 a barrel in 2015 and $300 a barrel in 2020 (1). Remember that a gallon of gas was just over $1 ten years ago; it is now around $4, directly affecting day-to-day businesses, commuting, construction, education, food costs, housing, medications, traveling, utility prices, etc. What about the rest of the world? Agflation (Agriculture and Inflation), which I mentioned in my previous article, will worsen and the economic and social gaps between the wealthy and the poor will only widen. While there is no single solution to this problem, the cross- pollination of multi-disciplined technology could be a major key to scientific and technological discovery processes that would end this near-crisis situation. For those who are not familiar with this word "cross-pollination," please refer to "Intellectual Cross- Pollination: Cross-pollination of Ideas - Modern Technology of Idea, Knowledge and Innovation Management" (2). Here, I would like to share some of my own ideas of "cross-pollination" based on the articles that I have been writing for JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization) since 2001 - "Venture Business Front Line (VBFL)" (3): 1. A new type of wind power generator (with a vertical shaft) which is more efficient than the existing wind power generator (with a horizontal shaft) - by cross-pollinating the ideas contained in [VBFL No.60 (vertical shaft wind power generator) + VBFL No.61 (new R&D based on a whale's fins) + VBFL No.80 (recycled feather fibers), etc.] 2. A completely redesigned STOL (Short Take Off and Landing) highly maneuverable aircraft - by cross-pollinating the ideas contained in [VBFL No.90 (rocket racing technology) + VBFL No.97 (high-tech applications of origami algorithm) + VBFL No.110 (secrets of bats' flight), etc.] 3. A new game theory architecture that tackles many real life problems - by cross-pollinating the ideas contained in [VBFL No.65 (anti-corrosion mechanism) + VBFL No.66 (instant super-computer with DFT++) + VBFL No.120 (on-line strategic poker games), etc.] 4. An improved model for venture business development - by cross-pollinating the ideas contained in [VBFL No.63 (the four-sector model for entrepreneurial business development) + VBFL No.117 (new business model for risk management based on a cockroach's anatomy), etc.] 5. A MAGLEV (Magnetic Levitation) system connecting to Vladivostok and Moscow in 11 hours - by cross-pollinating the ideas contained in [VBFL No.23 (intellectual property recycle business) + VBFL No.78 (MAGLEV high-speed ground transportation system), etc.] Please note that each example relies on both existing and emerging disciplines, and that it is absolutely inherent that intensive and effective knowledge be shared in order to be realized. (If you are interested in learning more about them, please contact the author.) One of the obvious challenges of sharing information (if not properly executed) would be a lengthy and costly patent infringement litigation. Jun Umemuro, Associate at Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge LLP (Boston), mentions in one of her articles titled "What We Can Do Now in Preparation for US Patent?--Infringement Suits 20 Years Down the Road" that a company is still vulnerable to facing a lawsuit decades after the development of their product. Nonetheless, this outcome can be prevented by the careful implementation of comprehensive knowledge management and establishing record keeping systems that would cover even (patent) pre-application stages (4). Please refer to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 26 to learn about the (legal) discovery process itself. Already, the amendments related to electronic discovery (eDiscovery), which became part of this procedure, went into effect on the first of December 2006, igniting more extensive (legal) discovery processes utilizing state-of-the-art information technology. What eDiscovery and Rule 26 actuates (from the inventor's view point) is the safeguarding mechanism that should be used for those who need to apply cross-pollination-ideas to solve complex problems. Cross-pollination can be horizontal as well as vertical. In many horizontal cases, a conventional technology licensing agreement might be applied (though the complexity of agreements is determined on a case-by-case basis). Vertical cases, however, might be seen in agreement where a grant-back clause is applied. One of my early papers titled "Grant-back Clauses: Implications For International Space Technology Joint Ventures" co-authored with Oliver W. Hennigan, Jr., was published by the American Astronautical Society (AAS 83-512) before the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster in January, 1986. The purpose of this article was to study the problems of protecting space technology, versus the problems of transferring technical information. It focused particularly on international contracts and other factors in international joint ventures such as grant-back clauses, licensing and contractual agreements, and philosophies by comparing the climate for space ventures between the United States and Europe. Then, my next venture was to transfer the once U.S.-developed superconductor related high-speed ground technology from Japan to the U.S. for National Maglve Initiative (NMI), which was formed in April 1990 by the DOT, USACE, the Department of Energy (DOE), and other agencies (5). My strategy was to apply the above mentioned vertical approach for NMI so that the U.S. would avoid re-inventing the wheel and be able to enjoy the full advantage of leap-frog effects. This work was conducted through a small U.S. engineering consulting company and by one of the think tank organizations in Japan that specialized in energy and transportation related technology. Massive amounts of information were transferred until the entire program was terminated (again) by the U.S. government. Though NMI did not lead to commercialization, the initial concept of transferred technology still exists in the U.S. with improved ideas and currently applicable technologies that can be deployed to other parts of the world when appropriate. In both cases that I mentioned above, a high-level political process was involved between academics, industry, and government organizations. Many useful ideas were born, but only a few of them survived. What happened to the ones buried under hundreds and thousands of pages of documents? Some of them could be very beneficial to solving current problems. What was invented 20-30 years ago does not necessarily need to hide under the category of "Useless Ideas of Yester-years." What worked then can continue to work now and into the future. For example, one particular U.S. Air Force bomber carrying multiple nuclear warheads has operated since 1954. Though periodically refurbished and upgraded, it is scheduled to be in the service until 2040 or longer(6). The cornerstone movement to cross-pollinate the "old" technology with the "new" technology has arrived thanks to speedy ways to identify and share information via means such as teleconferencing, the Internet, etc. This situation may well be the most challenging global conundrum for industrial and scientific (and, needless to say ethical, legal, and political) fields for the development of new sources of energy. Looking back upon the numerous R&D projects that I was involved in and remembering how records were kept (or not kept) on new ideas (or processes that lead to new ideas), it is highly advisable to start any kind of business venture with those who understand the importance of making use of each credible source of knowledge and information from the beginning of each project to avoid any patent infringement lawsuit in the future. In Steve Jobs' "12 Rules of Success," he (Apple co-founder) said, "There's always 'one more thing' to learn! Cross-pollinate ideas with others both within and outside your company" (7). We need to share ideas, but at the same time we need to share the joy of sharing ideas by being fair and respectful to those who invented them. (1) http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2008/02/oil-shortages-s.html (2) http://www.1000ventures.com/business_guide/crosscuttings/cross-pollination.html (3) http://www.validtechnology.com/venture/venturebusiness.html (4) INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT Vol. 56 No.10 2006, JAPAN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ASSOCIATION (5) Final Report on the National Maglev Initiative -- http://ntl.bts.gov/DOCS/TNM.html (6) http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/bomber/b-52.htm (7) http://www.1000advices.com/guru/leader_corporate_12_success_rules_sj.html Contact: Edward Kuroki kuroki@validtechnology.com http://www.validtechnology.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: Editorial and research assistance was provided by Elizabeth Berlik, Freyja Sanger and Michiko Kuroki. 【日本語要約】 著名なエネルギー問題分析家Charles T. Waxell（チャールズ・T・マックスウ ェル)氏によると、2015年までに1バレル180ドル・ガソリン1ガロン（3.8リッ ター）が12-15ドル （約1200-1500円）になることを予測しています。先回述 べた「アグフレーション（agflation）」にも拍車をかける状態となり、想像 を絶する経済・社会形態の変化を来たし、各地で暴動と氾濫が起こりかねませ ん。複雑な政治・経済・社会的要素も含めて、解決策の一つに技術のクロス・ ポリネーション (cross-pollination) - 「他家受粉」 - が考えられます。 アップル・コンピューター創設者の一人であるSteve Jobs（スティーブ・ジョ ブズ）氏もこの手法を社内・社外で奨励しています。この手法に不可欠なのは、 時と場所を越える知識の共有と活用ですが（「温故知新」の現代版とでも言え るのでしょうか）、これには意外な落とし穴があります。米国ボストンEdwards Angell Palmer & Dodge LLP法律事務所アソシエート梅室淳さんは、「米国で の特許侵害訴訟に備え - 20年後でさえあり得る訴訟に備えて今できること」 (知財管理 Vol.56 No.10 2006)中でこの意外な盲点を指摘すると同時に誰にで も出来る対応策を提言しています。情報・技術活用には様々なTechnology Licensing(技術移転)手法があり、一般に使用される横型条項の他に縦型の Grant-back Clause(譲渡条項)も考えられます。今後意外な所に意外な技術が 生まれるかもしれません。産官学を含めた技術開発(応用)過程を最初から「透 明化」し、時間と国境を越え「温故」を「知新」に導くことが大切になってく ると思います。 バリッド・テクノロジー・グループ代表 黒木嗣也 ( くろき・つぐなり ) kuroki@validtechnology.com www.validtechnology.com ********************************************************************* 2008.06.16 Venture Business Front Line - No. 122 "Agflation and the Potato" by Edward Kuroki Agflation is a combination of the words "agriculture" and "inflation." According to INVESTOPEDIA, it is defined as "an increase in the price of food that occurs as a result of increased demand from human consumption and use as an alternative energy resource." For example, corn and soybeans are currently consumed to produce ethanol and biodiesel, which is subsidized by the U.S. Government. With more demand for these products, their prices increase like gasoline prices. The most current news on this phenomenon can be found through the REUTERS website with its regularly updated and insightful information (1). The vulnerability of the world food supply system has been carefully monitored and studied since 1975 at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), one of the 15 centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (IGIAR). The April 17th 2008 issue of The Economist, among many other recently published papers and articles, reported a story titled "The Silent Tsunami" indicating sharp rises of food prices and urging immediate solutions (2). Unlike the tsunami that destroyed countless lives and property in a matter of a few minutes, "The Silent Tsunami" has been approaching our day-to-day lives slowly but surely as I indicated in the previous article of "Venture Business Front Line." As one of the counter-measures for Agflation, the United Nations declared 2008 the International Year of the Potato to "raise awareness of the importance of the potato - and of agriculture in general in addressing issues of global concern, including hunger, poverty and threats to the environment.(3)" For those who think of the potato only as "French Fries" or the "Baked Potato," it is a good time to learn more about this humble vegetable. It has the potential to be a "low-tech" solution to Agflation if implemented properly with sufficient funding and government support, as well as a way to create more billionaires like the recently deceased J.R. Simplot. J.R. Simplot, the founder of the J. R. Simplot Company -- a privately held food and agribusiness corporation based in Boise, Idaho -- was listed in America's richest people at No. 80 with an estimated net worth of $3.2 billion. The company has over 10,000 employees in five countries, and it is the world's largest frozen-potato processor, supplying French fries and other potato products worldwide (4). Simplot was also known as a successful investor in Micron Technology, which produces DRAM and Flash components used in advanced computing, networking, and communications products (5). At present, however, awareness of the business potential of potatoes is relatively low compared to rice, wheat and corn - perhaps because potatoes are not an internationally traded commodity. Many research trials are being conducted to produce genetically stronger potatoes with a much higher yield. It is a historical fact that potatoes of many varieties have saved many lives in many countries in the past - including Japan, Korea, China, Europe, Africa, etc. Ecuador, Bolivia, Africa, Australia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Peru, France, Slovenia, Switzerland, Netherlands, Rep. of Korea, Poland, Romania, Italy, the U.S.A., Canada, the U.K., and Indonesia are hosting events as part of the "International Year of the Potato" this year. All countries should join this effort to prepare for the ongoing waves and repercussions of the Silent Tsunami and turn them into new business opportunities. (1) http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/agflation (2) http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11050146 (3) http://www.potato2008.org/ (4) http://www.simplot.com/ (5) http://www.micron.com/ kuroki@validtechnology.com http://www.validtechnology.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: Editorial and research assistance was provided by Elizabeth Berlik, Freyja Sanger and Michiko Kuroki. <日本語要約> 近年の食料品価格高騰に伴い、新語・「アグフレーション（agflation）」を 見かけるようになった。農業（agriculture）とインフレ（inflation）を組み 合わせた造語である。この背景として、生物燃料（biofuel）として農産物の 需要が高まり、それらを原料とする食料・飼料の価格も上昇したことがあげら れる。同時に、世界的な食料危機を警告する「The Silent Tsunai（音を立て ずに接近する津波）」は、西欧先進諸国の食卓をも脅かすようになった。この ような中で、歴史的に過去の人類の食糧危機を何度も救ったポテト栽培・応用 を世界的に再認識する動きが始まった。国連は、2008年を「IYP（国際イモ年）」 と宣言した。これは、青少年間に食糧問題に対する意識を高めることも意図し ている。日本の家庭でポテトは主流ではないが、5月25日99歳で死去したJ.R. Simplot氏（米国アイダホ州ボイシー市）は、このポテトで（米国80位の）ビ リオネアになった。Simplot氏が創立したJ.R.Simplot社は5カ国で一万人以上 の従業員をかかえる冷凍ポテト(他)加工会社となり、多方面でアグリビジネス を成功させている。またSimplot氏が半導体分野ベンチャーに投資したマイク ロンテクノロジー社も有名である。ポテトは5000年以上の歴史があると言われ ているが、未知の分野も多い。面白いビジネス展開が可能である。 バリッド・テクノロジー・グループ代表 - 黒木嗣也（くろき・つぐなり） ********************************************************************* 2008.05.15 Venture Business Front Line - No. 121 "Food Shortage" by Edward Kuroki On a May 4th, 2008--a chilly and rainy day--approximately 40,000 people participated in the 20 miles (32 km) 40th Walk for Hunger in Boston. Founded by a group of activists from the Paulist Center led by Patrick Hughes in 1969, it is known as the oldest pledge walk in the U.S. and the largest fundraising effort which takes place in one day to try to alleviate local hunger. For those who are reading this article outside the U.S., one might want to note that this type of fundraising is popular throughout the U.S. and they are not just limited to hunger. Some of them are organized for animals, autism, breast cancer, HIV, diabetes, domestic violence, lupus research, etc. While hunger in the U.S. often reflects her social and economic struggles, there are a number of places in the rest of the world where people are fighting over food (and other basic necessary daily items). Please refer to Allegra Stratton's website for details (2).Test your knowledge in Geography as well. These locations are listed in alphabetical order with a brief description for each incident. 1. Abidjan, Sud Cote d'lvoire - April 2008: 1 dead and 10 injured 2. Bankura, West Bengal India - September 2007: rice riots 3. Bobo Dioulasso - February 2008: 100 people arrested 4. Conakry, Conakry Guinea - January 2008: food riots 5. Dakar - March 2008: food, oil and soap riots 6. Douala, Cameroon - February 2007: price riots, 40 dead 7. El-mahalla El-kubra, Al Gharbiyah Egypt - April 2008: 1 teenager shot dead 8. Jakarta, Indonesia - January 2008: soybean riots outside the Indonesian presidential palace 9. Maputo, Mozambique - February 2007: oil and food riots 10. Mexico, Distrito Federal Mexico - January 2007: corn riots 11. Milan Milan - September 2007: pasta riots 12. Port-au-Prince, Haiti - April 2008: food riots, 4 dead 13. Sanaa, Yemen - March 2008: wheat riots, 100 arrested 14. Sefrou, Morocco - September 2007: bread riots Although the reasons aren't clear, fear of a food shortage may be caused in part by the rising cost of oil. On April 25th 2008, only one bag of rice was allowed for purchase at COSTCO in California. Sam's Club, a division of Wal-Mart, took the same step to limit its supply during the same month. At local grocery markets, prices increased significantly for most items. The possibility of a shortage of fruits and vegetables is real because the bees who are responsible for pollinating them is decreasing at an alarming rate. Researchers are concluding that various chemicals used on crops, trees, global warming, certain parasites, etc. are to be blamed for it. Other major producers of honey - such as China, Argentina, Turkey and Ukraine - face the same problem; it is obvious that a global solution is needed. Moreover, there are two epidemics that still require serious attention: food waste and obesity. Both epidemics have been acknowledged, and they are worsening every year at a global scale. According to a study conducted at the University of Arizona in 2004 headed by Timothy Jones, an anthropologist at the UA Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology, 40-50 per cent of edible food in the U.S. is wasted or never eaten, amounting to approximately 43 billion dollars worth of food every year. This is not just a serious social and economic problem - it affects the environment. This study shows that reducing food waste by 50% could reduce adverse environmental impacts by 25 per cent through reduced landfill use, soil depletion and applications of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides (3). The U.S. has the highest rate of obesity among the developed nations, although President Bush has been advocating for a healthier nation by promoting physical activity and diet. We must realize the fact that being obese is not just an individual health issue, but it also leads to a massive food and energy waste. Hunger; food shortage; food waste; the rising price of rice, flour, corn and all other grocery items; gas; petro-based drugs and materials--the cost of all of these have skyrocketed. Real estate costs have gone down, but as a result people struggle with negative equities. There is no single solution for any of these problems. They are complex and mutually-connected and require high-level global initiatives as well as individual self-awareness. Is the UN suggesting anything? Yes, the UN named 2008 "the International Year of Potato (4)" which I would like to explore in the next issue. Let's think about the disaster that took place in Myanmar at the beginning of this month, and realize that even a very small fraction of the food waste that we generate could give a big relief to those who are in desperate need of food (5). (1) http://www.projectbread.org (2) http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/2008/04/food_riots.html (3) http://uanews.org/node/10448 (4) http://www.potato2008.org/ (5) http://www.ifrc.org/ kuroki@validtechnology.com http://www.validtechnology.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: Editorial and research assistance was provided by Elizabeth Berlik, Freyja Sanger and Michiko Kuroki. 【日本語要約】 原油価格高騰やその他様々な人為的な原因による食料不足と急激な食料価格上 昇は、開発途上国に限らず先進諸国の台所にも影響を及ぼしている。特に米・ 麦・とうもろこし類は購入数を制限し始めたところまで出てきた。このような 中「Food Waste Epidemic(食べ残しのまん延)」と「Obesity Epidemic(肥満の まん延)」は悪化をたどる一方で、これと言った解決策に欠ける。同時に最近 ミャンマーで起きたサイクロンの被害者は、救援物資としての食料を早急に必 要としている。歴史的に飢餓的状況下でジャガイモの栽培が各地に普及したが、 国連は2008年を「国際イモ年」と宣言した。米・麦などに舌が慣れた文化圏に 住む者にとっては食生活を変えることは難しいと思うが、世界的な食料危機に 面し何らかの形でPOTATOを取り入れるハイブリッド的な食物・飲み物も登場す る可能性が考えられる。 バリッド・テクノロジー・グループ代表 - 黒木嗣也（くろき・つぐなり） ********************************************************************* 2008.04.15 Venture Business Front Line - No.120 "Online Poker Game (2)" by Edward Kuroki The December 17th issue of Venture Business Front Line (115) reported that a 26 year-old former computer game designer is earning over $200,000 a year playing Online Poker with the help of statistical analysis software. He spends about 15 hours per week actually playing the game and an equivalent amount of time researching various techniques and strategies. He is considered to be in the top 1% of players in the U.S., and he indicated that the game theory behind his superlative poker skills could also be applied to many business situations. Along those lines, the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Societies' (GPSTS) program at Harvard Law School (headed by Prof. Charles Nesson), which "views poker as an exceptional game of skill that can be used as a powerful teaching tool … to teach strategic thinking, geopolitical analysis, risk assessment and money management" (1). Poker is one of a myriad of online games whose purposes vary from education, entertainment or profit. Some games are considered legal and some are not, depending on geographic location. Online Poker, for example, is increasing in popularity; revenues were estimated at US$ 200 million per month in 2005 (2). Evidence gathered seems to indicate that one of the major differences between online poker and conventional poker is that winning online poker requires different levels of assessment to the constantly changing environment -- just like many business situations. Such potentially useful carryovers raise the question of whether strategies for winning online poker could be applied to solving real- life problems-and possibly be compiled in the form of computer software. After all, multiple computer software programs exist that even compete against human poker players. The First Man-Machine Poker Championship was held between World-Class Poker Professionals Phil Laak and Ali Eslami and the Computer Poker Champion Polaris (University of Alberta) during July 2007 in Vancouver, Canada. Fifteen competitors from 7 countries and 43 bots gathered playing 17 million hands of poker. It was conducted during the conference of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) "to test the strength of the latest poker AI against elite human professional players"(3). At the competition above, there were the following three basic categories and winners for each category: No Limit: 1st place - BluffBot2.0 (Teppo Salonen), 2nd place - GS3 (Carnegie Mellon), 3rd place - Hyperborean07 (University of Alberta, Canada) Limit Online: 1st place - Hyperborean07 Online2 (a.k.a. Qeqbot, University of Alberta, Canada), 2nd place - Hyperborean07 Online1 (University of Alberta, Canada), 3rd place - GS3 (Carnegie Mellon) Limit Equilibrium: 1st place - Hyperborean07 (University of Alberta, Canada), 2nd place - IanBot (aka INOT, Ian Fellows, University of California, San Diego), 3rd place - GS3 (Carnegie Mellon) While the link below provides some details on this competition (4), one particularly striking part of the competition was the program called GS3 developed at Carnegie Mellon University and directed by Professor Tuomas W. Sandholm (and Andrew Gilpin). Prof. Sandholm presented a paper titled "Potential-Aware Automated Abstraction of Sequential Games, and Holistic Equilibrium Analysis of Texas Hold'em Poker" at one of the conferences sponsored by the INSTITUTE FOR OPERATIONS RESEARCH AND THE MANAGEMENT SCIENCES in 2007, in which a potential-aware automated abstraction technique for sequential imperfect information games was presented. This program is significant because it later became recognized for its actual operational and commercial capabilities. Prof. Sandholm also founded a company called COMBINENET that specialized in advanced sourcing technology based on the advanced combinatorial optimization technology that his team developed - introducing the concept of "Expressive Commerce." Their target customers are in the fields of Consumer Packaged Goods, Global Food Manufacturers, Retail, Industrial, Healthcare, etc., and their customers include H.J. Heinz Company, Procter & Gamble, Siemens, and the United States Postal Service. (They have already set up an office in Japan (5). ) But Professor Sandholm's program is not the only program that could be applied to the real world. For example, there were other programs that displayed different results at the 2007 Poker Bot Competition. Each top-ranked program appears to possess both strengths and weaknesses that could affect the outcome of playing the game and the various present and future applications. Who knows what other possibilities these programs could offer if tweaked slightly for different environments? Although it may have begun as an entertaining (and sometimes illegal!) game, online poker and its accompanying software continues to stimulate beneficial technological gains and a growth in strategic thinking. (1) http://www.gpsts.org/ (2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_poker (3) http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~games/poker/man-machine/Competitors/ (4) http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/%7Epokert/2007/index.php (5) http://www.combinenet.com/company/ kuroki@validtechnology.com http://www.validtechnology.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: Editorial and research assistance was provided by Elizabeth Berlik, Freyja Sanger and Michiko Kuroki. 【日本語要約】 ベンチャー・ビジネス最前線 (120) - 「ポーカー戦略ゲーム (2)」 昨年12月17日配信記事で述べました(オンライン)ポーカー・ゲームと関連して、 今回はその応用分野を報告します。まず、2007年7月、カナダ・バンクーバー で開催されたAAAI会議で、初めての試みとして人間対マシンのポーカー・ゲー ムが行なわれました。また会場では、7カ国から計43のボットが競いました。 中でも目を引いたのは、カーネギー・メロン大学Sandholm教授率いるチームが 開発したGS3。同教授はこのオペレーション分野に応用した内容論文も同年発 表、高度ソーシング技術を提供するCOMBINENET社の創設者でもあります。日本 でK.K.も立ち上げました。他チームによって開発されたプログラムとその応用 分野の内容は本紙では省略しますが、ポーカー戦略に基づく応用分野は、製造、 リテール、ヘルスケア等幅広い分野で期待されます。 バリッド・テクノロジー・グループ代表 - 黒木嗣也（くろき・つぐなり） ********************************************************************* 2008.03.17 Venture Business Front Line - No. 119 "Free College Education" by Edward Kuroki "So, tell me about yourself. What can you do for me?" is one of the first questions asked at most job interviews in the U.S. But how many college students are capable of handling this simple and straightforward question well? And what resources are available - at cost or free - to help them do it? The standard fallback is a college education. However, as the educational requirements for even entry-level jobs increase, the college prices follow suit. The cost of college education is rising in the U.S, while the quality of both teachers and students is steadily declining. Many colleges and universities are either going bankrupt or becoming more like for-profit corporations. Cost of attendance at Harvard College for 2007-08 (which includes tuition, health services fee, student services fee, room, board, estimated personal expenses and estimated travel costs) is $48,550 - $50,950, out of which tuition itself is $31, 456.(1) Cost of attendance at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) for 2007-08 is $48,186, out of which tuition itself is $34,750.(2) These two institutions are listed as "National Universities: Top Schools" at "America's Best Colleges 2008" by USNews.com.(3) Cost of attendance for ALL other academic institutions listed on this chart have also increased significantly in recent years. Various types of scholarships and financial aid programs are available; therefore, the actual cost of attendance may vary depending on each student. Many families utilize professional educational consultants to look for the "best packages." Transferring schools after the freshman or sophomore year in college has served as a countermeasure against the rising cost of college education. Students complete their general education requirements at a less expensive school, then switch to a more prestigious university to finish their degree. This tactic is particularly popular among students who enter college without a specific field of interest. The cost of attendance at the University of Massachusetts Boston is　 approximately $12,000 per year for a Massachusetts resident (4) and the cost of attending state community colleges is about 1/3 of that - a comparatively lower and more reasonable price to Harvard College and MIT. Fortunately, numerous traditional and innovative ways exist as alternatives to self-teach the world's top ideas to people who are driven to learn. Local libraries are often under-utilized since most people are unaware what they can really offer. Though they are not alternatives to "college education," even small towns have libraries with highly trained librarians and staff members who are supported by many high-tech tools and strategic alliances with private service　 providers. The Internet, specialized reference encyclopedias, and online subscription databases accessible with just a free library card are all waiting for learners to take advantage of them. In many cases, the learner will encounter new knowledge of the various free resources available by a simple discussion with a librarian. In the February 27th issue, U.S.News & World Report ran a catchy article titled "Get an MIT or Yale Education Free." (5) According to this article, hundreds of original courses (including homework assignments and exams) taught by professors at each academic institution can be observed and downloaded through the Internet. For example, MIT OPEN COURSEWARE allows people to view all 1800 courses from their famous architecture, engineering, and management programs - no payment required! (6) Although a student cannot obtain a degree or certificate this way, it does provide tremendous learning opportunities. This new movement in education is called OPEN COURSEWARE CONSORTIUM (OCWC), involving participation from more than 100 higher academic institutions around the world. (7) Several universities in Japan are already part of this effort, including the United Nations University in Shibuya, Tokyo. As for college education in Japan, the tuition is approximately half the price of the average college in the U.S. Some private institutions do offer courses in English towards fully credited degrees in Japan, and they cost more than public universities. All national universities became "National University Corporation" after April 1st of 2004 (8) - A report on "the Transformation of National Universities into Independent Administrative Corporations" is attached. This means that each institution was forced to adopt management techniques based on 'private-sector concepts' with people from outside the university to participate in the management process. The future of its educational system is yet to be decided based on its openness to accept new global environments. In terms of India, another major rising world power, they have a highly structured - mostly government subsidized - system with thousands of years of history. Though no college in India is part of the OCWC at this point; the Indian Institutes of Technology is ranked 2nd next to MIT in the field of Engineering according to Times Higher World University Rankings. The March 17th issue of BusinessWeek (page 68) talks about the difference between "Indian-style" innovation and "American-style" innovation based on their interview with Dr. Prasad Kaipa, Executive Director of the Centre of Excellence for Leadership, Innovation & Change (CLIC) at The Indian School of Business (ISB). It mentions that "Indian innovation tactics are focused on individual learning and creativity and very small research-and-development budgets." (9) This situation is completely opposite of the United States where large research-and-development budgets are considered important. We need more recognition on free college education like the one offered by OCWC, and we need to teach the general public about the modern roles of free public libraries. (10) These resources could be widely and wisely utilized to nourish the minds of people in all ages for lifelong learning, which would benefit each nation and the world. At the very least, they will certainly help anyone with the confidence and knowledge to answer "So, tell me about yourself. What can you do for me?" without spending $50,000 a year for college education. (1) http://www.fao.fas.harvard.edu/cost.htm (2) http://web.mit.edu/facts/tuition.html (3) http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/t1natudoc_brief.php Please note that the colleges listed in the link above are both public and private institutions. Based on this ranking, Princeton University is ranked #1, Harvard University #2, Yale University #3, Stanford University #4, University of Pennsylvania #5, California Institute of Technology #5, Massachusetts Institute of Technology to be #6 and so on and so forth. TOP LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES in the U.S. are also listed. (4) http://www.umb.edu/administration_finance/bursar/tuition_fees.html (5) http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/50-ways-to-improve-your-life/2007/12/20/get-an-mit-or-yale-education-free.html (6) http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm (7) http://www.ocwconsortium.org/ (8) http://www.mext.go.jp/english/news/2003/07/03120301.htm (9) http://www.coolavenues.com/bschools/080204/isb-leadership-1.php (10) Please note that these services are being supported by tax payers and donations made by private individuals and corporations. kuroki@validtechnology.com http://www.validtechnology.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: Editorial and research assistance was provided by Elizabeth Berlik, Freyja Sanger and Michiko Kuroki. 【日本語要約】 ベンチャー・ビジネス最前線 (119) - 「無料大学教育」 米国でも近年大学(高等教育)は様々な問題を抱えている。学費・諸経費は公立・ 私立とも高騰し、日本の倍以上の所が多くなってきた。中流階級市民に対する 影響は大きい。しかしながら、世界の名門校で教えられる授業・教材・試験内 容など無料でインターネットを介して誰にでも公開する事業(OPEN COURSEWARE CONSORTIUM - OCWC)が開始され注目を浴びている。同時に各種ハイテク技術を 導入した公立図書館では今までとは異なる様々な知識・情報を各町単位で無料 提供している。OCWCには現在全世界20カ国から100団体以上、日本からは10校、 中国はその約3倍、韓国からは2校が参加。インドはこれからだが、インドの個 人学習重視型イノベーションの創出方法は米国と対比した要素を含んでいる。 バリッド・テクノロジー・グループ代表 - 黒木嗣也（くろき・つぐなり） ********************************************************************* 2008.03.03 ■○■━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ○■　ベンチャー・ビジネス最前線 - Venture Business Front Line - （118） ■┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ モンキー・ビジネス - Monkey Business 昨年末に日本へ行った時、宮崎県児湯郡西米良村(注1)板谷の山奥で面白いも のを見つけました。まずは、下記リンクでその画像を見てください。何だかわ かりますか？ http://picasaweb.google.com/edkuroki/ForVBFL118 ここに出ている画像は、山奥に生息する蜂から蜜を集めるための道具です。 非常に原始的ですが、蓋を開けると町のスーパーでは手に入れることの出来な い実に美味しい蜂蜜がとれます。ここで1つ、あまり日本では聞かないアレル ギー療法に関してですが、住んでいる地域の近くに生息する蜂が集めた蜜を飲 むと花粉アレルギー等に良いことが知られています(注2)。日本では逆に蜂蜜 に対するアレルギーに関する情報を聞きますが、それは出所不明の蜂蜜を摂取 することにより起こるものと考えられます。蜂蜜の成分・構造を考えると納得 出来ます。 因みに国連食糧農業機関（FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS）の統計によると2002年時点世界の蜂蜜の生産量は128万トンで、全 体の20.3%が中国産です。日本の輸入量は4万トン。このうち9割を中国に頼っ ているようです(注3)。そして、2006.03.15配信ベンチャー・ビジネス最前線 （88）号で簡単に述べた蜂蜜酒（Mead・ミード）は、蜂蜜にミネラル水を入れ 薄め、それに酵母を加えて置いておくと出来ます。 さて、訪れた西米良村の山も猿害（と、さらに鹿害）に悩まされています。イ ンターネットで検索すると多くの情報が得られます。独立行政法人農業・食品 産業技術総合研究機構は多くの報告書で色々な対策を促しています(注4)。 そこで、猿に関する興味深い情報を2つ紹介します。 1つは、ボストンにある非営利法人Monkey Helpers for the Disabled Inc.です (注5)。1979年に活動を始め、身体が不自由な方の為に猿を(盲導犬のように) 訓練して貸し出すサービスを提供しています。最初は米国軍人戦傷者を対象に した、日常の簡単な手伝いができる猿の飼育研究開発から始まりました。次第 に民間でも知名度を得ると同時に最新技術の導入によって新しい訓練方法が開 発され、現在は身体が不自由な方がいる家庭でも活躍するようになりました。 もう1つは、Monkey Picked Tea（猿によって摘まれた茶）です(注6)。ここで は下記のリンクだけを紹介しますが、日本語以外で検索すると色々情報が得ら れます。因みに日本国内では「猿茶」として少量売られています。中国某地域 の猿調教師によって訓練を受けた猿だけが「演じる」ことの出来る業です。ノ ウハウは同業者で堅く守られたトレード・シークレットのようですが、イギリ スがアヘン戦争後本国に持ち帰ったペキニーズ犬の秘密と同じ扱いではないか と思います。 米国で研究開発された猿の調教方法は(猿の種類も含めて)そのまま日本で当て はまるとは思いませんが、例えば猿害対策として、一部の猿を訓練し、人間社 会で役立つ山の幸を採ってきて上記リンク画像のような場所で集めるシステム が出来ないかと思ってしまいました。日本には古代中国から奈良時代に伝わっ てきた「猿まわし芸能」があります。「昔から馬の守護神と考えられてきた猿 を使った芸は、武家での厩舎の悪魔払いや厄病除けの祈祷の際に重宝され、初 春の祝福芸を司るものとして御所や高家への出入りも許されていた」とありま す(注7)。 現在日本でこの伝統的「猿まわし芸能」は、山口県光市の「周防猿まわし会 (注8)」、熊本県阿蘇郡の「阿蘇猿まわし劇場」、山梨県南都留郡の「河口湖 猿まわし劇場」で見ることができます。民族學研究(The Japanese journal of ethnology)からは、「我国猿まわし芸能集団における芸能の継承と芸能の観 客受容(The Succession of Monkey Training within the Group Concerned With Monkey Performances in Japan and the Historical Appreciation of the Performances by the Japanese People)」と題する論文が出ています。 猿まわし芸能が出来るなら、米国・中国が出来るなら、出来ないことはないと 少し強気に思いました。 (注1) http://www.nishimera.jp/ (注2) http://www.pioneerthinking.com/to_honey.html (注3) http://faostat.fao.org/ (注4) http://www.naro.affrc.go.jp/ (注5) http://www.monkeyhelpers.org/ (注6) http://www.thinkgeek.com/caffeine/drinks/9f1f/ (注7) 出典: フリー百科事典『ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 (注8) http://www.suo.co.jp/ ※宮崎県児湯郡西米良村板谷に住む人達によると、残念なことですが近年山蜂 の数は少なくなり、とれる蜜の量も激減しているそうです。 黒木嗣也・くろき つぐなり - Edward Kuroki - kuroki@validtechnology.com バリッド・テクノロジー・グループ 代表 - http://www.validtechnology.com 2008.02.01 ■○■━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ○■　ベンチャー・ビジネス最前線 - Venture Business Front Line - （117） ■┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ゴキブリ - Cockroach 当ベンチャー・ビジネス最前線 110号で、新しい航空機開発の可能性につなが るコウモリ（蝙蝠）について述べました。その時、気になりながら答えの出な かった事があります。もともとギリシャ寓話と言われるイソップ物語のコウモ リが、日本語で漢字にするとなぜ虫へんの「蝙蝠」となるかです。イソップ物 語「獣の国と鳥の国」(「こうもりと鳥とけものたち」とも題されています） は、あまりにも有名な物語ですので詳細は述べませんが、簡単な内容は(注1) でご覧ください。その中で、コウモリは獣（四足動物）か鳥か問われます。昆 虫の部類には入っていません。読者の中には漢字が得意な小学生もいると思い ますので、是非この点わかったら教えて欲しいです。 イソップ物語は童話として子供達に読まれますが、大人にとっても奥が深いも のです。動物、鳥、昆虫に関係なく、人間がそれら生き物(自然)から学んでい ることは沢山あります。技術分野での一例ですが、昆虫からヒントを得て開発 されたUAV（無人飛行機）があります。日本国内では、日本産業用無人航空機 協会(注3)があり、小型UAVを研究開発中で「科学観測への応用に関する研究会」 もありますが、昆虫大のUAV開発の現状は不明です。 米国ですと、国防省が開発費を出している超小型「（飛行する）昆虫型スパイ ・ロボット」があります。カリフォルニア州、AeroVironment社が有名で、 「Black Widow」と呼ばれる超小型機を開発しました(注4)。他社が開発した中 には、コウモリ（蝙蝠）が飛ぶ原理を応用したもの、トンボのように飛行する ものもあり、建物内をあまり音を立てずに飛びながら様々な映像(他)を記録・ 送信するものまでが開発されています。２年前、日本滞在中に（室外用）ラジ コン飛行機を購入して飛ばしましたが、それも軽量小型モーター二機装備で高 性能でした。 昆虫から学ぶことは技術分野だけではありません。マサチューセッツ州立大学 の生理学・生化学専門Kunkel教授(注5)、Delaware Valley Collegeの昆虫学専 門Tipping教授(注6)、アリゾナ州立大学の神経科学専門Strausfeld教授(注7) の実験・研究で、ゴキブリは頭を失っても体は数週間生き延びることがわかり ました。頭だけの部分も、何時間かアンテナを動かしながら生きていることも わかり、これらの科学的謎も解けてきました。そして筆者はその謎の中に、ビ ジネス分野(特に危機管理学)で応用可能な貴重な知識が含まれていることに気 づきました。 将来、現在の「応用昆虫学」とは異なる「昆虫学に基づくビジネス論」に発展 する可能性もあるのではないでしょうか。やはり、コウモリは漢字で虫へんが 正しいのかもしれないとも思いました。 (注1) http://www.diarix.jp/aesop/sub/story06.html (注2) http://www.avinc.com/ (注3) http://www.juav.org/ (注4) http://www.uavforum.com/vehicles/developmental/blackwidow.htm (注5) http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/kunkel/ (注6) http://delval.edu/cms/index.php/delval/departments/bio/C674/ (注7) http://www.neurobio.arizona.edu/faculty/strausfeld/index.php 黒木嗣也・くろき つぐなり - Edward Kuroki - kuroki@validtechnology.com バリッド・テクノロジー・グループ 代表 - http://www.validtechnology.com 2008.01.15 ■○■━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ○■　ベンチャー・ビジネス最前線 - Venture Business Front Line - （116） ■┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 挨拶 - Greeting 「明けましておめでとうございます。今年も宜しくお願いします。」 自分は1994年から宮崎県延岡市と姉妹都市である米国マサチューセッツ州メッ ドフォード市で剣道の指導を続けています(注1)。指導・支援に当たる10名は 皆無料奉仕です。大変感謝しています。近年剣道に来る色々な子供達・父兄を 見て、現地アメリカ校へ通う子供・父兄達と比べ気づいたことがあります。そ れは、子供達が自主的に挨拶をしなくなったことです。今年の初稽古は５日で したが、自ら新年の挨拶をした子供は数えるほどでした。普通の稽古の時でも、 入り口で父兄が子供達に挨拶をしても素通りする子供さえいます。家庭におい て親が子供に挨拶すること、挨拶をする意味を教えなくなったのでしょうか。 何語でも適切な挨拶をする必要性を教える必要があります。 この挨拶について、ボストン日本語学校校長・長谷川賢嗣先生にお話を伺いま した(注2)。まず「親が日常生活で（普通の挨拶を含めて）言わなくなってき た」こと、そして、文部科学省が「早寝早起き朝ごはん」の国民運動を推進す る中(注3)、また少子高齢化・核家族化が進む中、いかに親が子供と面と向か って話し、色々なことを教え見せる機会が少なくなってきたかを指摘されまし た。これには、父母間の会話も含まれます。子供は父母の会話・態度など（親 の背中を見て)、日常生活から学び取る事が多いことを物語っています。 同時に長谷川校長は、NHK放送文化研究所(注4)の「日本人の好きなもの調査」 (注5)によると、「問38　好きな言葉」の1位に「ありがとう」(66.8%)が挙げ られていることに触れ、日本人の根底にはまだ「礼」の思想につながる感謝の 気持ちが存在すると話しておられました。しかしながら、「好きな言葉」であ っても「(特に子供の間で)頻繁に使われている言葉」であるかは不明です。 そして、これが「挨拶」をする言葉・表現とは違ったレベルであることを筆者 は感じます。 例えば、礼で始まり礼で終わる武道は、最初「お願いします」で始まり最後に 「ありがとうございました」で終わります。人に会って最初にするのは、この 「お願いします」であり、いきなり「ありがとうございました」ではありませ ん。「お願いします」の部分で、「おはようございます」、「こんにちは」、 「こんばんは」、「明けましておめでとうございます」等が出てくるのだと思 います。これらは、節度を付けるものです。この節度は、自由社会を求めれば 求めるほど大切なものになってくると思います。 握手もその一つです。ナヨナヨとした握手では国際社会では信頼を勝ち取れま せん。今朝もYMCAで、80歳近い鉄道電気通信技術専門のロシア人、リソフスキ ー元・教授と握手しましたが、負けそうでした。自分の右手握力は約70kgです。 因みに、文部科学省の体力・運動能力調査結果から握力の部分だけを抜き出し たデータを見つけました(注6)。しかしながら、筆者が数年前、某アジア国の 外交官と握手した際、普通に握手したつもりが相手に怪我をさせ詫び状を出し たこともありました。異なる文化によって、手加減する必要があったようです。 日本生活習慣病予防協会の調査によると「6歳から19歳の青少年では、50メー トル走、立ち幅とび、ソフトボール投げなどの基礎的な運動能力や握力は1980 年代以降に下がりはじめ、90年代頃に特に低下した。」とあります(注7)。追 記事項として、筆者が指導する剣道教室では腕立て伏せの出来ない子供、足腰 の弱い子供が増えてきました。多忙な中でも、親子が一緒に頑張る姿勢が望ま れます。 いつどこへいっても健康を保ち、強く正しいインパクトを与える子供達が育っ ていくことを願って止みません。「ベンチャー・ビジネス」とは直接関ありま せんが、年頭のご挨拶とさせて頂きます。 (注1) http://www.medfordkendo.org (注2) http://www.jlsboston.org/ (注3) http://www.hayanehayaoki.com/ (注4) http://www.nhk.or.jp/bunken/ (注5)集計結果上位10、【調査の概要】1．調査時期　2007年3月3日（土） 〜11日（日）、2．調査相手　全国の16歳以上の国民3,600人（12人×300地点） 、3．調査方法　配付回収法、4．回答数（率）2,394人（66.5％） (注6) http://akuryoku.noyokan.com/data/age_grip18.html (注7) http://mhlab.jp/calendar/seikatsusyukanbyo_01/2007/10/001834.php 黒木嗣也・くろき つぐなり - Edward Kuroki - kuroki@validtechnology.com バリッド・テクノロジー・グループ 代表 - http://www.validtechnology.com