Meeting in Japanese, Russian and English! (part 10)
Назад(Inventor’s sketches)
Tokyo, September 27, 2011. The first meeting with the Japanese is scheduled for Tuesday, it’s my Birthday! Despite of this significant day, I am routinely getting ready for the meeting. I am taking a prototype of the DO-RA device with a radioactivity sensor which I brought from Russia and with a cracking pace, descend to the subway. Today our aim is the company Fuji, a subsidiary of the large holding company Fujitsu. Fuji represents the interests of NTT-DOCOMO, a group of companies with a clientele base of over 300 million accounts. On my way, I get a short but very important briefing from Sensei: «If you want to be late for a meeting in Tokyo, get a cab. If during the meeting the Japanese side offers you a green tea once, everything went well. If they serve green tea twice, it means that negotiations are over and they’ve totally lost interest. It is also good to know that the Japanese mentality does not allow them to say no. They would rather say “it will be quite difficult” or something equally vague.
We were looking for the red building for half an hour. Finally we got a cab and went in the opposite direction from where we ended up on the metro. «It is the first pancake which is always a failure!», - I was thinking to myself. After a while, we finally found the office in a building of a color completely different from red. «Am I colorblind?» – Sensei asks his assistants and gives them a heavy look. The assistants did not understand his humor and looked away embarrassed. The entrance to the building is dim, after the Fukusima catastrophe the Japanese save power.
The Japanese office is quite a Spartan place by Moscow standards. Employees of a large department work in a big room without partitions, I think just to demonstrate their work activity to each other. There is a coffee machine and a Xerox, and that’s it. Ten people gathered in a conference room to meet with us: six Japanese, two Mongols and two Russians. We did not have a professional translator, so everyone started talking at once in different languages, needless to say quite emotionally. A veritable cat’s concert! I waited until everybody calmed down and said “ Better to see once than to hear ten times” and emptied the contents of my briefcase onto the table. Then taking my time, I launched the program-emulator DO-RA on all smartphones and computers and in a mix of Russian and English started explaining each function of my device. Judging by reactions and gestures, people got interested. When DO-RA demonstrated enhanced radiation doses imitating it with smartphone gyroscope, the Japanese were obviously amazed! I made the right impression.
After demonstration of the device, our negotiations became more involved. To my satisfaction, during those 2.5 hours nobody offered us the second green tea! Well, they also forgot to offer coffee! At the end of the meeting the Fuji president said that a few companies in Japan have been working on similar projects since 14th of April. But, in his opinion DO-RA project is much more interesting and possibly more original than the competitors’! Heh, Japanese polite diplomacy! Soon after the meeting, Yoshida Susumu, a former high ranking official in the Ministry told me in broken Russian: «Vladimir-san, congratulations with unconditional success! Judging by your approach you will beat the competitors any way. As well, the president has promised to tell other Japanese companies about your project. This is a serious result for a first meeting!»
On the way back to the hotel, Sensei and I were discussing the meeting. Yesterday we met with Sensei and his wife Michiko, and his colleagues in the restaurant «New Otani» and celebrated my Birthday. We finished late, were tired but satisfied with a good day. The same day I got news from Apple Inc.: an email said that I got two developer licenses for iOS and MacOS X based on an earlier placed order. Competitors, hang on to your hats, we will catch up with you and take over!!!
To be continued…
Vladimir Elin
October, 2011.
