Quality Control of individual life

In a class of Operation Management, the professor showed an example to explain quality.

One day, a boy was asked by his father to mow their lawn. He was lazy and didn't do it well. His father found the boy's poor work, and asked the same thing again. The boy ended up mowing the lawn again. In this case, the boy did a same woke twice, which means that he took time and effort almost twice. If people produce a high or sufficient quality products and services, they would be able to save money and time as cost.

The professor explained about "Mission Statement" for a company. While "Vision" for a company is "where the company will go," "Mission Statement" is usually "Why a company exist." He said his personal mission statement as an example. It was "My daughter is the first priority." Even though he had some works to do on the weekend, he stopped his daughter playing the iPad and spend a precious time with her. I felt it sounds like improving quality of life.

SF Japan town anime festival

I went to Japan Town in San Francisco again, but this time the purpose is to see the anime festival. There are not that many people but some cosplayers looked so geek Lol

I ate ten-zaru-soba at a Japanese restaurant in Japan Center West.

SF walking

Using BART to Civic Center, I went to the public library for study. For lunch, I stopped by Japan Town and ate Tempura & Ramen.

I finally finished a write-up assignment of the Computer Information System at a cafe called Sightglass. Even though a glass of coffee is not cheap, the atmosphere of the cafe was so nice.

Picnic of English

I attended a picnic held by the English department on campus. I was introduced as an assistant teacher of the summer study abroad program for Japanese high school student.

Lawsuit game

In class of HR, we played a virtual lawsuit, in which the two topics about employment of discrimination. First case was that a young woman applied a job of waitress at a restaurant, but the restaurant recruits only for men for the position of waiter because the restaurant's concept was the western cowboy, and those cowboys present a cowboy show at the restaurant. However, the young girl sue the restaurant because of gender discrimination. Her claim was that the restaurant rejected because she was woman. On the other hand, the restaurant's claim was that only trained male actor is needed. Our argument was very exciting in class.

Another case was that a religious man kept wearing a hat during working our in the restaurant. A customer started complaining it, and the restaurant asked the employee to take off the hat during working, but he rejected. Because of the reason, the restaurant fired him. The fired man sued the restaurant. This is also a typical lawsuit about employment in the U.S.

Yet, it is difficult to see this kind of lawsuits in Japan.

Horse racing in the U.S.

I went to see a horse racing in Stockton. I have not been a horse racing since I was in Tokyo. The system of betting is almost same, but I couldn't understand which one was the betting ticket that was in my mind in Japanese. Only one type I understood was "Win" which is the ticket for the 1st place. I kept betting this ticket for several times. In total, I bet $40 and won $30. Thus, yes, I lost $10...

Anyway, it was a nice experience for me to see what I know but what is in a different country.

The definition of MBA

I have been reading a Japanese book via Kindle lately.
*If you read Japanese this is PDF, I think the same. 
It is about the Japanese MBA educations. The author, of course, graduated from a business school, in France, and conducted a MBA program to introduce in Japan. I realized a lot of viewpoints that most of Japanese MBAs are totally different from other typical western style MBAs, which are accredited by certain organizations. Even though name of the degree can be translated into Japanese, the actual contents are not sufficient. Only two schools in Japan are accredited by AACBS. There is another organization called QAA that accredits business schools mainly in England and Europe. According to QAA, MBA is defined as "career development generalist programme," and which is way different from the idea of most of Japanese MBAs because those schools provide just Master degree of Business or just Master of Science in Business. I strongly agree with how different it is because when I majored in Business Administration when I was an undergrad, the courses I took were very academic, not practical at all. It could be said that I didn't force on classes during college days. However, I can now really feel American style of education is very practical. This is one of things that I noticed by staying here in the U.S.

Interesting hiring rules of the U.S.

Suppose you work for a HR department and need to select a person for a certain position from candidates.

For instance, in general, you would have somewhat bias about candidates even if you don't think so or you are trained so.  "Contrast Error" is a term that evaluation is biased. For example, there are three different cups of water. The cup A has hot water inside. The cup B has room temperature water. The cup C has cold water. If you put your hand in the cup A, and then put it in the cup B, you would feel the cup B is warm. On the other hand, if you put your hand in the cup C first, and then put it in the cup B, you would feel the cup B is cold. Similar things occur in interviews because every person has somewhat certain biases.

Analyzing Graphology (Handwriting Analysis) is another interesting way that is used when HR people see candidates. I'm not sure if it practically useful or not.

Other typical questions about whether it is illegal in the U.S. ,when interviewer asked candidates, are following below.

"Do you have children?" ×

"Which country do your parents come from?" ×

"How old are you?" ×

"Have you ever been arrested?" -not illegal but-> useless or meaningless because even speeding is technically considered as being arrested.

"Do you own your own home?"  -not illegal but-> useless or meaningless

Since Japanese applications or resumes for job normally require face picture, age, marriage status, and sex, American style would be surprising Japanese people. 

Salesforce makes enterprise social

For CIS assignment, I needed to analyze a case about Salesforce.com, which is famous for SaaS (Software as a searvice) of CRM (Customer Relationship Management). I knew this company but didn't know its social marketing support service called "Radian 6." It's so amusing.

I learned that there are many interesting cloud services that Salesforce.com provides.

Japanese food shopping

I went to a Japanese supermarket in San Jose to buy Japanese food. I finally found Maruchan-seimen, which is now a very popular instant noodle in Japan.

A big typhoon attacked west area of Japan. It seemed to cause a flood in Kyoto.

Moto X

Finally, I got a new phone, Moto X. It has many interesting functions such as "OK, Google Now..."

Turning on camera is so quick and easy

Plus, this Motorola Migrate was so helpful.

I'm not a sales rep of Motorola but I like it.

Bar & Night club

I drank some Ume-shu (Japanese plum wine) at my neighbors home with friends, and then we drank some at Grizzly Rock Cafe as well. After that we went to Red Brick in downtown. I was actually surprised because, even though the club was small, there were so many young people. We also had a fun time with drinking, dancing, and chatting.

Recent recruiting style of the U.S.

In the HR class, our professor showed us a Youtube video.

It was so long, so I couldn't remember anything...but I know what it is.

Federal Reserve vs S&P 500

If you see the balance sheet of Federal Reserve Board (FRB), you can recognize several wave and it's heading to go up. Likewise, if you see the wave of S&P 500, you can see very similar wave. In the Business Strategy class, I learned a fact that there is a correlationship between the trend of Federal Reserve asset and the trend of S&P 500.

In fact, some people mention about it on the Internet.


Correlation Between S&P 500 And Fed's Balance Sheet Threatened By Rising Rates


It's a kind of very interesting viewpoints. If FRB would stop buying asset to make economy market stable, another economy crisis would come all of sudden. That kind of crisis has not come since Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in 2008.

Sunday SF

The temperature of San Francisco is getting low. I went to SF by Bart. I ate a long doughnut at OUT THE DOOR. My late lunch was at Tiansing, a Chinese dim sum restaurant. Dim sum was not warm... fried oyster was not good... I stopped by La Boulange Bakery , which is famous for providing pastlies for Starbuck. Iced coffee here is so strong, but I like it. I did my homework at Metreon for a while. I bought a glasses of orange lens for my night driving at Westfield. The glasses actually worked when I drove back to home!

Lake Tahoe 2 - North after Reno -

I left the hotel at 3:30 am for Reno to see the balloon race show. When I arrived at the event place, the first balloon show, glowing balloons, had almost finished.

Fortunately, I was able to see a main show of the early morning. It was awesomely beautiful.

There was some surveniｒ shops of the balloon show.

After sunrise, so many balloons were launched. It was so beautiful. So many people came to this event. In fact, I can find many pictures of this event on the web.

This is my favorite picture I took.

Balloons are reflecting on the surface of a pond.


I ate crape as breakfast at Creme. It was better than I expected.

After I was stuffed, I drove to the north side of Lake Tahoe. First place I arrived at was Incline Villeinage. I just ate Ice cream there. And then, I went to Kings Beach to see a beach of the lake and to wash my sandal.

Finally, I stopped at Tahoe City, which has Lake Tahoe Dam.

It was nice visiting!!

Lake Tahoe 1 - South -

I went to Sacramento in the morning to see my acquainted woman's new born baby.

After that, I went to Shoki Ramen for lunch. It was not bad, but I think I expected too much...

I headed to the Lake Tahoe after ramen. The first place I arrived at was Emerald Bay Beach located in South Lake Tahoe.

The city was very good. Many things are attractive for me.

I wanted to ride a gondola, which is mainly used in the winter because there is a ski resort on the top of the mountain, but it was closed when I visited.

For dinner, I went to Naked Fish and ate Tahoe Crunch.

After sushi dinner, I went to a beach near my hotel to see sunset.

Sun was reflecting on the surface of the lake. The view from the jetty by Boathouse On The Pier was so beautiful.

Even though I ate dinner, I ate Kara-age and Ramen at Yama Noodle as my second dinner (Yes, I know I would gain...). Actually, not only was its taste good but also was the customer service good. Very good.

BSG

Business Strategy Game is one of what I need to do at the Business Strategy class. It is actually interesting. When I read a player's guide, I though it looks so hard, but it eventually looks amusing! Its setting is very close to the real world.

Shark Tank

I went to Queen Bean Coffee House. It was a nice building and bigger than I thought. I did my homework for a while there.

I saw an very interesting TV show. It's the Shark Tank. The brief idea of this TV program is that several rich business people as investors judge presenters who bring their business plan, and if the business idea is good, those "sharks" invest a couple of hundreds thousands dollar for a certain percent of stock of the company of the presenters. Each presentation is so interesting and exciting. This TV program reminds me a Japanese TV program called "Ma neh no tora(マネーの虎)," which means the Tiger of money in Japanese. I spent too much time to watch it, even back numbers, so I couldn't finish my homework.

Thai Cuisine / Bubble Bath

I went to Thai Cuisine, a Thai restaurant in Marced. Sauce that was used for shrimp dish was really good. So yammy!!

I did a bubble bath at home. I used Tokyo Milk to make water bubbly.

I ate Japanese curry at home. The curry paste of this time was Java Curry. It was a bit spicy but good!!