The Importance of Traditional Techniques - cacci

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CACCI Journal, Vol. 1, 2006Like many other countries, Japan still retains its own traditional management styles thateffectively work in Japanese enterprises, especially in local SMEs. Indeed, the so-called Japanesemanagement, universally praised in the 1970s and 1980s, exploited the characteristics ofJapanese business practices. The globally acclaimed Japanese management was unique in thesense that the management styles in local SMEs and even those of big enterprises in headoffices and sales shops were behind the modernization of the 1960s and 70s. All big enterprisesof Japan modernized production lines and sent their engineers abroad to learn frontiertechnologies. Thus the big enterprises of Japan attained top efficiency in production lines inthe mid-1960s. Even so, head offices rejected the rationalization and retained traditionalmanagement styles, even in big enterprises. In some ways, this is what was praised asJapanese management.The globalization of the 1990s extinguished Japanese management systems in largeenterprises. But they are still alive in SMEs in general and local ones in particular. A carefulobservation and analysis of these surviving management systems can be expected to help thedevelopment of new types of business applicationware and business models. The "obsolete"local SMEs with traditional management systems can be key developers of new IT products.In contrast with the weakness in software in general, Japan is strong in game software forgeneral users. Among others, one reason may be the absence of a specialized professionalmarket in sophisticated military game software for political reasons. The absence of demandfor real war games or simulations has driven software makers toward game software for generalusers.Another reason may be the survival or presence of typical Japanese games, which haveprovided the seeds of new ideas for games. Go originally came from China and has beenhighly developed in Japan. The shag; of Japan was originally from Chinese chess but hasbeen revised in Japan. The Chinese-origin mah-jongg has been very popular amongbusinessmen and government officers. Besides these games, local areas retain a variety oftraditional games as their "niches". A collection of such games may be expected to provideseeds for the development of new game software. Local SMEs are well placed for suchdevelopment.Database of traditional techniquesThe Agency of Culture (part of the Ministry of Education) and NHK (the nationalbroadcasting corporation) have taken pictures of local customs, such as traditional festivals,traditional foods, folk dances and others for permanent record. This is extremely valuablefrom sociological and anthropological points of view.A similar project may be proposed to record traditional techniques, includingmanagement practices, in the form of sound, images, written documents and others. Moderntechnologies will find new seeds in these records.Local museums have collected the "ruins and fossils" of old tools, products, pictures andothers, some of which are related with traditional techniques in the areas. Indeed, local museumsdisplay the tools for wine (sake) fermentation in the areas. Local libraries have alsocollected documents and pictures of such things. Similar activities are seen for botanical orzoological gardens, aquariums and the likes. A salmon-fishing village operates an aquarium8
CACCI Journal, Vol. 1, 2006specializing in salmon and collects many salmon-related species. Further it collects old toolsfor salmon fishing and old documents about the salmon fishing system. The collection isvaluable in biological and sociological aspects. Anther fishing village operates an aquarium ofsardines, a third operates an aquarium of shellfish, and so on. But these collections are "randomly"dispersed in various areas and are not systematized at present. Therefore, the retrievalof the information collected is not easy. Systematic catalogues may be needed.Museums, libraries, botanical or zoological gardens, aquariums and similar institutes(simply "museums" hereafter) are in financial difficulties and some are now closed. Nationaland local governments recently privatized museums or suspended financial support to them.This is mainly because policy makers with legal or economic backgrounds are ignorant of thescientific tasks of these museums. Such policy-makers misunderstand museums merely asshowrooms to amuse children and do not know what is done behind the showrooms. It isurgent to make government people more literate about S& T and culture, besides politics andeconomies.Policy makers remember museums as "hells" in their childhood. They remember thattheir teachers forced them to visit the "hells" and to write reports on the assigned topics. This"bad memory" drives them to make policies to lead to their closing the "hells". Museums arestill open by saving costs by, for example, discarding some of the collected items.In fact, many zoos discard animals unique to the local areas as unattractive and insteadare now training pandas for walking on two hind legs in order to attract visitors and gainadmission fees. This concentration on particular species, I fear, will make systematiczoological research difficult. Indeed, this has disappointed local amateur zoologists andschoolteachers. Unaware of scientific and education methodologies, such as taxonomy, policymakers are interested only in the panda and other popular animals. Unlike the policy makers,however, some children and parents are interested in obtaining scientific or historicalknowledge in the museums. Such a learning attitude is the fountain of future S& T andculture.The financial deficit has driven governments to cut the budget for elementary schoolsand now to drain the S& T fountain.ConclusionThe discussions above present the merits of traditional techniques that are expected to beuseful to ETs. The recently formed cooperative unions of enterprises and universities wouldbe well advised to transfer traditional techniques to universities and high-tech big enterprisesfor filling deficiencies in ET. The creation of a knowledge database of traditional techniquesand the systematization of catalogues of techniques collected in dispersed museums areadvisable for easy retrieval of valuable information. Governments would be well advised tosupport the collecting activities of museums as the fountain of future S& T personnel.But these discussions are not valid just for Japan. Rather, the imbalance between themodern and the traditional resulting from policies for rapid innovation is common in manyrapidly developing countries. It is common knowledge that new technologies are stilldeficient and that traditional techniques have useful information to make up the deficiencies.It is also normal that traditional techniques survive mainly in local areas, and that their sys-9
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