Are you Godzilla?

The foreigner symbolically is Godzilla to the Japanese. Specifically the USA and the story of WWII told in Japan. A business colleague recently commented to me in which I quote verbatim

‘ Japanese people sometimes feel…foreign English speakers seems like a gojira (Godzilla) to them cause they totally don’t understand what they are talking about’

Get to the Point!
The source of this is based in WWII symbolism:

Godzilla’s very name emphasizes the monster’s foreign nature. Gojira, as he is called in Japan, has his name spelled in katakana, the written characters used in Japan to represent foreign words. … The course of Gojira follows the war in the Pacific as seen from the eyes of an ordinary Japanese. At first, there are reports of ships sunk, representing Japan’s naval defeats and the destruction of its merchant marine fleet by US submarines. … The ship losses are disturbing, but not immediately threatening. Then Godzilla emerges on Oda Island, which stands for all the islands lost to the US, in particular Okinawa, the closest. Godzilla/US now threatens Japan directly. The monster’s attack on Tokyo mirrors the destruction wrought by the US Air Forces. Japan’s armed forces are helpless against the power of Godzilla. Japan’s fighter planes drive back Godzilla temporarily, but clearly without harming the kaiju (monster). Unlike the real war, this allegorical one ends with a Japanese victory as Dr. Serizawa’s kamikaze attack in Tokyo Bay destroys the enemy. Yet the real threat presented by the US was not defeated and continued to be depicted in subsequent films.
Source

This symbolism is strong and as someone living in Japan you can feel like Godzilla many times a day and while not as terrifying as the movie icon, it does lend itself to reflection amongst all foreigners living here.


Again, to know your new market and how you and your company may be perceived is key. Many have succeeded in Japan and made huge gains from getting a foothold here. For the old boys we still want to be Godzilla and crush our competitors and enemies, it is how you become a success right? In the case of Japan, this approach may leave you with closed doors, try opening with a gift and a warm and appreciative greeting. This doesn’t mean weak and wimpy, this means genuine and friendly like you are greeting an old friend.

Key Point: Understand they may see you differently than you think, be genuine, come with good intentions and expect to build a long relationship, which may take longer than you expect to get the trust you normally receive.

The Japanese Customer - Export to Japan

Export to Japan? About the Japanese Customer.

 

1. T2 - Topic and Target

2. Get to the point.

3. What’s in it for you?

1. T2 - Topic and Target

Having lived here for 13 years and often marveled at the uniqueness of Japan, I often wondered why there was a lack of so many brands that were common in Canada and the USA. Did they not have the budget or wherewithal to enter and compete in Japan?

For sure the bureaucracy, tariffs and restrictions play a part, however there are quite a few brands that have made it into Japan and have succeeded quite well.

apple, Nike, Starbucks

2. Get to the point.

For us the defining reason for brand success in Japan is to:

1) have a product that has high quality

2) understand Japanese expectations

The two are obviously mutually inclusive.

Having a product with high quality speaks to the Japanese. There is a strong emphasis within the Japanese educational system and within the working environment that when you present something, it must be as close to perfection as possible. This is absolutely expected and anything short of this is quickly dismissed. Even special events at Elementary schools are rehearsed and planned extensively. In business, with manufactured goods all you need to hear is the brand names Toyota or Honda. There is absolute dedication to preparing and delivering the best.

This attitude to success lead them to incredible growth in the post WWII era. Sure Japan has its weaknesses but quality manufacturing and thoughtfulness are not two of them.

3. What’s in it for you?

Our partner, Mr. Yoshiro Kawabe says when asked about what international producers should think about:

‘Japanese require a lot of information, Japanese people are wary of international people and they need a lot of information, why now? why do you want to come to Japan? Japanese are very sophisticated customer, it is kind of Japanese culture, Japanese like products with long history but if you have new product or service that is new and unique you could become very successful, that is if you have quality...you have to test marketing and maybe be ready to change your product’

So if you are considering entering the Japanese market, you need to have a quality product or service which fits the Japanese consumer expectations. You need to do your homework.

You can find me at

Contact:               

Northern Lights - Rising Sun       

twitter@ rockyjapan                  

facebook               

  
maru-de agency               
facebook maru-de agency  
twitter@ marude_INTL
google.com/+Marude-agency

Edmonton - Are You Interested in Japan?

1. Is This for You?

Topic:

Edmonton and area businesses interested in Japan and/or Southeast Asia.

Is this for you?

Are you a manufacturer or service provider interested in selling in Japan and southeast Asia?

2. Get to the point!

I will be coming to Edmonton from March 26 to April 5. I am looking for Edmonton and area companies who are interested in launching their businesses in Japan or southeast asia. I can help you with Japan market research, branding, website development and sales support. I have 13 years experience in Japan and have many contacts in a wide array of business areas that may be interested in your business.

Japan Market:

Population: 127.6 Million

Tokyo: 37,555,000 CMA

Osaka: 17,234,000 CMA

Nagoya: 10,238,000 CMA

(Central Metropolitan Areas, 2014 Estimate)

GDP per capita: $46,720 (USD, 2012)

Looking for:

Original or high quality products or services that would appeal to the Japanese market and/or southeast Asia.

I will be in Edmonton from March 26 - April 5 and can meet you to explain in person more about how I can help you.

3. What’s in it for you?

Do you have an interesting product that would appeal to the Japanese market? Don’t know if it would appeal? I can find out for you. I can help you get established, by actively pursuing distributors, setting up meetings and advising you on cross cultural issues and providing language assistance. First, all you need to do is meet with me.

I am working with Lanchester Management, we are launching a new business and while we wait for the final English website to be completed, you can see our current site (only in Japanese, we currently help Japanese companies export).

Contact:               

Northern Lights - Rising Sun       

twitter@ rockyjapan                  

facebook               

  
maru-de agency               
facebook maru-de agency  
twitter@ marude_INTL
google.com/+Marude-agency

TJCS 2013 New Years Party with Ambassador Clugston

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January 16, 2013 Tokai Japan Canada Society - Shinenkai Event Review

Wow, What a great evening!

For myself having lived in the Nagoya region for the past 11 years, it was my first Shinenkai event from the Tokai Japan Canada Society. The event, which was initiated by the members of the Business Committee, was an outstanding success. I could sense from the attendees that their was a real sense of optimism for the New Year. 

Mr. Bruce McCaughan, TJCS Shinenkai MC

The event began with Mr. Bruce McCaughan (WSI Consulting) acting as MC for the evening. McCaughan kept the evening light and humorous and everything seemed to go smoothly.

Quick Review

Inspiring and effectual speeches from the executives and VIPS. There were many local government and corporate leaders in attendance and the following are only a few.

From L to R, T. Nakamura, Matt Fraser, Mackenzie Clugston, Takashi Kamio, Hideaki Omura

Mr. Mackenzie Clugston; Ambassador to Japan; Government of Canada

Mr. Hideaki Omura, Governor of Aichi

Mr. Takashi Nakamura; Mayor of Nagoya

Mr. Takashi Kamio; Senior Advisor to Toyota Motor Corporation

Mr. Matt Fraser; Nagoya Canada Consular Office

Mr. Koji Yamaguchi and his troupe gave a great introduction to the traditional Japanese shamisen with a youthful energy which had the crowd fired up!

Overall a wonderful event that showed the TJCS continues to impress with wide variety of events that attract large numbers of attendees. Looking forward to seeing the organization grow this year.

Main Review

It was an event with two purposes, first it was a kick off to the TJCS 2013 year and secondly and I believe more importantly it was a welcome to the new Ambassador Mr. Mackenzie Clugston as his first official visit to the Nagoya region.

Mackenzie Clugston, Canadian Ambassador to Japan

Clugston gave a wonderful speech, spoken fluently in Japanese, highlighting the relationship between Japan and Canada and it was great to see the reactions of so many attendees at just how fluently and eloquently Mr. Clugston could express his ideas from the theme of cooperation between our two countries.

Mr. Takashi Yamamoto (TJCS President) gave the welcome speech from the TJCS.

Matt Fraser, Nagoya Consul

Mr. Matt Fraser (Nagoya Consular, Canadian Government) also gave a speech covering the local perspective of the Central region of Japan and the Canadian governments work in the region to promote each other’s initiatives.

After all the speeches were taken care of everyone was free to mix and the crowd buzzed with introductions and new friendships. Of course for myself there were many locals that I haven’t seen in a long while and we could catch up on how life is going and what are the plans for the upcoming year. It was great to see Mr. Julian Bashore (Bodycote), Greg Robinson (Bombardier), Jeff Genet (Power English), Andy Boone(andyboone.com), Sarah Mulvey, (Nanzan University) and many more. With so many people coming to Japan and staying only one or two years it is great to see people who have established themselves successfully here. All of these great photos were brought to us by the talented Andy Boone, link above.

The last event of the evening and for me the main attraction was the shamisen concert put on by Mr. Koji Yamaguchi and his troupe (one of which was my wife Mamiko). Koji always entertains the crowd as I have seen him a few times. However he was able to get a usually quiet and conservative Nagoya business executive crowd clapping along with great enthusiasm as he played traditional melodies while making the tempo rise and fall all with a youthful vigor that inspired us all. I am of course biased here, but I think Koji will continue to grow in popularity and hope he can grow his own brand of traditional Japanese music fused with his youthful energy and willingness to try new collaborations.

M. Fraser, T. Yamamoto, C. Walker, K. Yamaguchi, M. Walker, Ito san, M. Clugston, T. Kamio, Y. Fujiwara

For me personally it was a great personal kick off event, which has started my renewed ambition to put Canadian business together with business in the central region of Japan (chubu). This review is by myself and not the opinion of the TJCS Business Committee of which I am a member.

Twitter: rockyjapan

Social Media - Democracy - Use Your Voice

Social Media - Don't be Afraid to get engaged. 

You are a part of a ‘real democracy’.

Never before in our human history have we had the possibility to achieve so much. With today's technology and the ability for people to share resources, knowledge and work cooperatively towards improving the way we live we are now experiencing incredible innovation.

This will become even more evident over the coming years with our energy resource utilization, our local, national and global governance, as well as the way we continue to be connected to each other and recreate the traditional channels of media and distribution. This is what a true democratic society was meant to be. That is, to be connected to each other, to have the ability to make change for the better, and be held to the true value proposition that you can achieve, whether it be in business, arts and culture or through social improvement.

It is scary; we can be criticized or anonymous fools can easily point out the errors in our thoughts, you also can see it in the eyes of people who built their ideology on the old power structure. But no one should be afraid. Just learn how to adapt to the new reality. Get involved in the discussion, whatever it may be, good people will back you. I would be interested to hear of bullying cases and thoughts and strategies to counter cyber bullying, people want to be connected but we have almost all had run ins with these assholes. Any thoughts?

Your voice can now be heard and the more you offer, the more you can affect change and gain the trust of those you are connected to. Learn to grow a thick skin and know that many will support you, while others may ridicule you. For the trolls and the cyber bullies learn to accept that many people will not like what you have to say and often they lack the intelligence or the patience to write thoughtfully, they may even be right but if they contradict your thoughts and can’t write how and why and what might be a better idea, then erase them and forget them. Accept that trolls and bullies exist, but don’t let the bastards bring you down. Use your voice. Call the bullies out. blog about it and point the people back at them.

I have seen so many great things come from this new interconnectedness yet the most intriguing thing for me is just how we as a society will be able to govern ourselves and create change with each other as it evolves as the group en masse wishes. Traditional channels of media, wealth distribution are now being completely rewritten and will lead to a redistribution of wealth not based on status or current power but will instead depend on the value proposition, that is whatever you add to the pot will be scrutinized and the group will decide its true value, the more people that review what you do the more correct the final valuation will be.

There are many cases where social media has gone awry and often it seems to correct itself, but we cannot run away from the most powerful tools, the ones that give us a voice where before all we had was a remote control to change the channel, now we write the channel. These are my thoughts.

Thoughtful ideas and even contradictory views are welcome, with ‘thoughtful’ being the operative word.

Seeking Consensus in Japan - Nemawashi

Japan Culture : Nemawashi…nema what..?
In short, nemawashi means to seek a consensus before a decision is made.

What does it mean to have all the information before someone asks you for opinion in front of your colleagues?
What is the difference between the Japanese approach to life and business vs. the western approach?

Nemawashi:
Japan’s ancient principles of wa (wah) – perfect harmony and amae (ah-my) – absolute trust were designed to eliminate conflict in al relationships, personal as well as business. Over many generations these concepts were to become a part of the psyche of the Japanese and influenced every aspect of their culture to a significant degree…one of the ways that the Japanese attempted to conform to the dictates of wa and amae was to devise a way to deal with each other – in business as well as private things – that avoided disharmony and protected everyone’s face (meaning to save ones face or to not be embarrassed or feel public humility).
- From Bilingual Books: Japanese Nuance in Plain English (pp63)

What does nemawashi really mean? I suppose it is one of those traditional cultural qualities that when mentioned to native Japanese you receive nervous laughter about how you really understand the Japanese heart, and yet they hope that you don’t.

Nemawashi to me really highlights the difference between Japan and the ‘west’. That means the focus on the group vs. the individual. In Japan all emphasis is put on the will of the group, at all costs.

In Japan, when we are discussing business in meetings and items of significant change it is paramount to discuss with all or your key contacts before presenting. The western way or approach would be for us to draft our own great new idea and to ‘blow everybody away’ (impress everyone) at the next meeting with our great new idea with an eye on a promotion or accolades. This works in the west but in Japan will almost always fall on shocked and embarrassed meeting members. Japanese people don’t like surprises; they avoid confrontation at almost all costs. This is why it is not only common but also an absolute must to gain the feedback and positive push from key members before any meeting. The logic is simple, you go to the key people who will support you or you need for approval of your idea or plans, more importantly you will receive feedback on the groups needs.

How to engage Japanese people using ‘nemawashi’ to earn trust, build relationships and ultimately move forward with business or relations?

( Above a Japanese Izakaya lantern aka a Japanese pub)
Some humble tips:
1. Find out who will be involved in the key decision regarding your ‘business’ or relationships
2. Find times and ways to engage with these key players (with the help of a translator if necessary) by:
a) small informal meetings ‘one on one’ within or outside the organization
b) have lunch with key members who are too busy to go out after work
c) take the members out or ask them to take you out (if a visitor in Japan) and casually engage with them individually (i.e. each one at a time, not as a group discussion) over dinner or drinks, asking for their opinion on your ideas and seek their honest feedback, be genuine.

3. Have you listened and understood their feedback? Good. Now find ways to input those recommendations into your plan without crediting them outloud, i.e. as simple nod when mentioning the idea in your presentation will show you did your due diligence and acknowledge them discretely.

Overall though this just seems to be common sense to seek input from all the interested parties beforehand and when it comes time to officially (in a meeting format) put forth your idea to do business you will be in a position where all key members have already heard the ‘pitch’ and will be far more likely to move forward.


(Cheers or Kanpai in Japanese)

If it is the first time they are hearing the official ‘first pitch’ in a meeting they probably will not be interested or you may need to go back and start again. You will probably need to engage in nemawashi at some point regardless so why not do it first! Good luck!

I welcome any feedback and comments on my take on the Japanese idea of nemawashi…what have your experiences been?

Week 7 and 8 Optimizers Update

Week 7 and 8; November 3 – November 15
Optimizers Program; The program is simple in nature, yet difficult to explain. I have devised a way to 1) think, 2) plan and 3) execute my intentions in order to pursue my dreams. It is simply a way to measure my own key performance numbers and follow my progress. This blog is also a way to show how my progress is moving along and to describe the unique lifestyle that is for a foreigner living in Japan. I wish to share these experiences and my progress with you.

Maximum Points Available:
Overall 74% 384.6/520 Points

2 Week Pt Totals 2 Week Goals %Goal Reached
88 110 80% Economic
78 85 92% Exercise
84 85 99% Nutrition
57 55 104% Cleaning
87.6 110 80% Temple
47 100 47% Mind
89 120 74% Spirit
110 100 110% Connect
37 20 185% Dropping the Ball

384.6 520 74% Total

Economic 80% 88/110 Points
Stabilizing: Quite a good couple weeks as I practiced bringing only 500 yen per day to spend, I prepared my own lunches and food to eat as well as bottles of water. A few days of overspending, this was a great reminder that I have to continue to be disciplined and follow the approach.

Moving Ahead: The main focus here was the exporting business and some god discussions on English training. The next two weeks will be critical as far as the next six months go. I have thinking of plans, the next focus for weeks 9 and 10 shall be utilizing time in the evening to prepare and plan for the week and the next day. This is so critical and so easy but as well so easily not done. The results you see are completely correlated to how well you plan, and execute your ideas.

Optimizers: Very little was accomplished here as my main business concepts have to take priority. I plan to meet people in the next two weeks to move this program ahead.

Temple: 80% 87.6/110 Points
Not bad, as far as nutrition and exercise goes I still maintained some decent effort. It is now evident that this Optimizers semester has proved to be mainly sustaining effort. I must start to look to the next Optimizers; Winter SOULstice and begin preparing a simplified but more encompassing plan to pursue and track my intentions. There shall be no more smoking from week 9. Nothing more needs to be said on this. With the potential news from my wife this next week I must prepare my body to be as healthy as possible for one more very important reason, the rest being the fact that I want to enjoy the last half of my life without serious health complications due to my treating my body like a punching bag for the last 15 years.

Mind: 47% 47/100 Points
I have been very bad with this. I need to keep pushing myself to learn more about Social Media, Japanese and my author ambitions. The main key here is to write down the plans for the next day and follow them. On the bright side I have found a new application which should make it much easier to study on the fly! http://www.Smart.fm No more excuses. Now is the time to improve my knowledge.

Connect: 110% 110/100 Points
This has always been my strongest foundation and still is. I need to start writing to reconnect to all of my contacts. I just need to again write one or more friends and family every day. Fantastic event was held by our TJCS (Tokai Japan Canada Society) business committee which was blogged previously.


Spirit: 74% 89/120 Points
While not perfect, I have found that most days I can sit calmly and reach deep meditative levels without too much focus. This level of calmness is great for inspiration and helps me find some peace in difficult times. Of note, when I do this effectively it can often bring those days of stress into focus and I often get right back to work shortly after meditation.


GDI Exports: GDI Colin
Japanese Car Quality Reason #1: Monozukuri

Ever wonder why Japanese quality has come to the forefront with so many industries in the last few decades? So did I, this is one reason why I have decided to join James Hedden in our quest to export high quality Japanese built cars and high quality foreign vehicles and machinery which were used here in Japan. The first factor of this success was actually highlighted (an previously posted through the GDI Colin blog) with our latest installment of the Tokai Japan Canada Society Canada Means Business events. Our team successfully pulled off another event with Ron Haigh from Toyota giving an extremely valuable presentation about how Toyota has become a global leader in one of the worlds largest industries. Toyota continues to move ahead on a global scale simply by taking a scientific approach to business management and manufacturing. Japanese quality comes from many different techniques but two that stand out are ‘monozukuri’ and ‘kaizen’. Monozukuri is the concept of building products which actually benefit society which is of course primarily the customer, the second one ‘kaizen’, being the obsessive passion for improving the processes that go into any product. In our case with GDI Exports we are slowly moving towards a consistent inward look at how we can offer high quality cars, trucks, heavy machinery and equipment with an efficient and optimized customer service experience. Our website should see significant changes soon as we aim to narrow our focus on high quality vehicles and equipment. Have any questions? Send me an email or have a look at our website for more information.
colin.walker@gdicarexports.com
www.gdicarexports.com

For our future endeavours we will plan on creating a mission statement, followed by a detailed plan on how I will make this mission statement possible. With the mission statement and the detailed plan I will execute the work needed to move ahead and establish key performance indicators (KPI) that show how progress is moving along and allow for improvement to be made to the process. This is where I believe the western business professionals have lost focus. With the emphasis on individuality there is little focus on the overall team and how to improve things continuously, with these improvements come a disciplined approach using effective meetings and action plans. This approach is not as interesting as instinctual management, this may be true to some extent however when you are talking about building business you need to Think, Plan and Act of course, but you also need to rely on data and your KPI to understand your environment and analyze how to best move forward. Intuition is exciting but data and analyzing metrics is the only way to build a successful business. Time will tell if this theory actually will provide the fruit I have been looking for. I am convinced and will be able to tell more within my planned six months timeline which ends in March 2010. Now it is time to really lay the foundations with my friend and co-worker James Hedden to see of we can effectively Think, Plan and Act our way to sustained wealth. Again I am convinced it will come only from plotting our strategic plan, and measuring our progress. Stay tuned for more updates on our quest, and send us an email if you want to learn more about importing used cars or equipment to your locale!

colin.walker@gdicarexports.com

Aurora English Comments:
No action here, he nest two weeks I hope to create the action plans moving forward.

The Optimizers: The program is simple, yet takes time to understand how to implement. I am planning on having the next full program start on December 21: Winter SOULstice 2010. It will be a full team based commitment and will be limited to ten members of which 6 should be in the Nagoya area. Please send me a note if you know you are ready to challenge yourself like never before. 90 days, maximum 50 points a day, minimum points you get per day is up to you!

Email me at positiveattraction@gmail.com

Tokai Japan Canada Society - Canada Means Business

Canada Means Business; Speakers Corner

Volume 2: Ron Haigh

Toyota Motor Corporation; Overseas External Division

Learning from Mistakes and Remembering Why We are Here

“Mistakes are a part of life. It’s your response to error that counts.” - Nikki Giovanni, Poet

We are pleased to announce another successful event, the second volume in Canada Means Business; Speakers Corner series was held this past Thursday November 5^th with over 25 attendees from Japan, Canada, USA and Australia. Introduced by our lovely Business Committee member and MC for the night Ms. Rika Tanaka; our guest Mr. Ron Haigh highlighted the history of the automobile, and how Toyota evolved into the international success we all know today. Beginning with company founders Sakichi Toyoda and Kichiro Toyoda we learned how the company adapted from early mistakes to continually improve its operations. One of the key principles to this ongoing improvement explained was Monozukuri, which is a key component of Japanese industry but is also a mainstay of the Tokai business scene, monozukuri (モノズクリ) states that the goal is to add value to society by producing things of exceptional value and to do so under the spirit of kaizen or the ‘spirit to produce excellent products and the ability to constantly improve a production system and process’.

Another key principle introduced by Mr. Haigh is Jidoka, (自働カ ) which is the process of man and machine working in unison to create products in order to benefit society. This was highlighted in the viewing of the Toyota assembly line through a DVD presentation showing how Toyota continually improves it’s processes utilizing it’s employees to add value at all aspects of the production process.

The closing portion was an explanation of how Toyota continued to learn from mistakes with it’s launch of Lexus in North America and how even though the cars were recalled Toyota went far beyond anyone’s expectations and sent technicians to owners and through this and many other measures earned the respect of the North American market with it’s dedication to one thing and one thing only, the customer.

The presentation was concluded with the future of hybrid technology and how Toyota is moving ahead with the Prius model and it’s latest release the hybrid only model which will be on sale in Japan on December 7. With only an hour and ten minutes, Mr. Haigh delivered an entertaining and powerful presentation, which left the audience eager for more.

We hope to have Mr. Haigh back for a follow up event early in the new year to finish his story as there is so much more to know about this extraordinary company.

A special thank you goes out to Mr. Haigh for coming down from Tokyo for giving us a great presentation. As well I would like to thank Ms. Rika Tanaka (MC), James Hedden (V.P. & Co-Chair), and Bruce McCaughn (Communication Committee Chair) for all the help in making the event possible. As well I would like to thank Mr. Allan Edwards from the Consulate here in Nagoya and Mr. Paul Thoppil, Commercial Minister, Trade Commissioner Service (Embassy of Canada in Tokyo) with their continued support we can all look forward to more events in the near future.

We are looking forward to finishing our 2009 Canada Means Business Series with the final installment being the Meet n Greet on December 2^nd.

We are also looking for new members who would like to join the committee for 2010, please send an email to business@tjcs.jp and join us for another great year!

Colin Walker

TJCS Business Committee; Co-chair

www.tjcs.jp

Comments from our guests:

This bi-monthly business seminar is a great way to learn about business in Japan and interact with many people involved in international business in Nagoya. TJCS invites speakers from a wide range of backgrounds and industries and the networking is amazing! インタナショナルビジネスはここからスタート！私のお勧めです！

- Steve Burson

President,

H & R Consultants

Contact Steve Here

With a company the size of Toyota, I figured that there must be other Canadian employees, but had yet to run into anyone until the Canada Means Business seminar. I started working for Toyota in 2007 after five years working for a tool and die maker in Takahama City, Aichi Prefecture. Through my years in Japan I have learned that "senpai", or superiors, are regarded as a great source of wisdom and advice, so I was eager to meet Ron Haigh and hear about his experience at Toyota over the past 20 years. Ron's speech about how Toyota has learned from its mistakes, yet remained steadfast to its principles, motivated me in my work as well. Many of the concepts were familiar to me and I already apply them everyday on the production floor, but Ron's personal anecdotes added humour to the story and made it very entertaining. Events like these give me a great networking opportunity and I look forward to participating in the future.

- Allison Teasdale,

Toyota Motor Company