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

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

October 5 - 11 - 240 points

October 5 - 11

Economic
Stabilizing:
I have really scraped the bottom of the barrel and in the process I think the silver lining is again learning and reminding myself of the value of the dollar. While having little money could hurt the pride and I am treating it as a sort of cleansing, a reminder of how I really want to be and a reminder in support of my own abundance and moving my family to a more safe economic reality. Interestingly enough, while there is of course concern, but there is a feeling of confidence that if I stay on this path I will see the improvement in my personal economic reality. This is such an integral part of the entire process, that is to prepare to move ahead you have to get your house in order and know the reasons why you spent more than you needed to.

Moving Ahead:
This has been solid in effort and the lesson here which would be referred to in the GDI Exports and Power English sections in a separate blog, however again the main lessons learned here are that you must refine your dream, envision it, and most importantly create the action plan towards that dream, then let no one or no obstacle stand in the way. Keep pushing. So I will. I learned a great lesson from a famous Japanese businessman and entrepreneur this weekend on our trip to Mie prefecture.

Mikimoto Pearl Island (Japanese Pearl Divers)
Here we stayed at the town of Toba and we decided to check out the island called Mikimoto Pearl Island on Sunday. This island while not a cheap attraction, also not overly expensive, was the ‘pearl in the haystack’. Overall I would rate the museum and the attractions as the best I have seen in Japan as a foreigner. There was plenty of English guidance on display walls and the story of Kokichi Mikimoto is a really intriguing one. It is a testament to remaining strong to your vision and believing in yourself and to push through setbacks that would throw any good man off his tracks. Some interesting concepts from him was that he believed in international experience and also believed that he should be Bold and explore outside his region in Japan and internationally. He also stayed true to his passion, which was pearls, even when WWII has opportunities a plenty for an enterprising businessman, he stayed true to his vision, i.e. ‘Pearls don’t fight back’ and stayed out of the war business. This museum is a must for any foreign visitor and will hopefully fill you with a renewed fighting spirit and a new respect for another business and political icon of the Meiji period.




GDI Exports:
Looking forward to continuing to learn the processes involved here. As mentioned in my promises to myself are that I will enjoy the process of building a business with a friend, keep your eyes on the prize.

Power English Comments:
Had some good classes from Wednesday to Friday, some good people and I forgot how much I enjoy teaching adults English. They are motivated to learn and generally enjoy the conversation. They key is that each individual comes to class for a different reason so it is a good idea to give each student what they are after while maintaining a good flow to conversation and a learning point. This is quite possible with a maximum of six students.

Optimizers:
Moving along with this program, just have time to update it every few days. This next week should be better.
Up to 240 points and hope to equal or better that score in the next week.

Temple:
Great week with a few runs and a DVD workout.

Mind:
Some great movement on this foundation as listening to various podcasts and reading has again become a key part of the day.

Connect:
Home: Had a fantastic trip to Mie prefecture on the 10th ad 11th . Communications has also been god with family and has allowed this foundation to stay on top.

TJCS: Looking to get cracking on our latest event and finally build the website as planned. Hope to have the final preparations for the event done by the 18th and the website content plan approved by WSI Consultant Bruce. The event will be November 5th and will have Mr. Ron Haigh from Toyota as the guest speaker. More on this soon.

Santa Japan
I hope to also finalize the facebook page and have the invitations sent out by Sunday. Full steam ahead with helping on this initiative.

Volunteer/Community
I will seriously begin to look at my idea for the rail tacks near my house shortly after we deliver the final Canada Means Business Event in early November.


Spirit:
Some great meditative time, need to continue making this important, it is such a valuable part of the day, great energy and some great thoughts come when you can just be still and relax. The power of this cannot be understated.