Japanese Executives Being Told to Get in Line Online
As executive director of a major TV animation-production company, Yasumasa Fukushima commands power and prestige. But set him down in front of a computer, and the 52-year-old manager turns into a quivering mass of nerves.
On a recent afternoon, glassy-eyed and white-knuckled, he stared into the screen of his nemesis--an IBM PC--at a class aimed at middle-aged Japanese executives who are computer neophytes.
“I’ve never touched a mouse in my life,” said Fukushima, whose company plans to buy him a desktop computer and has made it clear it expects him to use it. “I have no choice.”
Japanese companies bow to none in churning out high-tech innovations. But inside many of those same firms, memos are still often written by hand, and calculations tapped out on abacuses and pocket calculators. And tapping away at a keyboard is still considered by many male executives to be “women’s work.”
Now, though, Japanese businesses are urging senior employees to hook up to databases and communicate via e-mail. And management types who don’t know megabytes from megahertz have become the target of sales pitches--and gibes.
“In our company, the higher someone’s position is, the less capable he is on computers. Isn’t it funny? Ha ha ha!” chortles a young up-and-comer in an ad for Compaq’s Presario.
In another spot, this one for Fujitsu, a bald-headed cartoon mascot cringes when his son asks him about personal computers. “Don’t ask me that question--please, just don’t ask me that question,” the character whines.
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Life imitated advertising at a recent computer seminar in Tokyo’s electronics district of Akihabara, where 10 executives gathered for a session dubbed “intensive computer training from hell.”
Instructors had intended the course title to be lighthearted, but for their pupils, it was no exaggeration. Fukushima, the TV-production executive, stared at the screen, then eyed the keyboard.
He gingerly grasped the mouse, then attempted to operate it by pushing it across the desk, shoving aside textbooks that got in the way. With a click, the map he was working on disappeared.
“Oh, no! I lost it,” Fukushima gasped. His tutor quickly restored the missing material, which he had inadvertently pushed offscreen with the page-down arrow.
Similar executive seminars--this two-day session was priced at $600--are increasingly common, many sponsored by major computer makers such as Fujitsu and NEC.
Despite Japan’s high-tech image, personal computer use was until recently limited mainly to kids playing electronic games and young people who want Internet access.
A lack of Japanese-language software for word-processing and difficulty in understanding terminology literally translated from English helped keep demand for home computers sluggish.
But sales are expected to jump nearly 60% this year to about 5.3 million, making Japan one of the world’s fastest-growing PC markets, according to Dataquest Japan Ltd., a market researcher.
The government set up a five-year project last year to promote computer use in offices, but change is coming slowly.
According to a recent survey of 880 Japanese companies by Fuji Research Institute, a private think tank, only 20% said their executives could use computers.
But companies are sending increasingly strong signals that they won’t wait forever for their workers to get in line--or online, as the case may be.
Major computer game maker Sega Enterprises announced it would no longer hire the computer-illiterate. Japanese steelmakers said by the end of next year, they want all their executives to have e-mail--and use it.
The government too is struggling to catch up with the times. Until recently, government officials would arrive at international conferences carrying loads of documents wrapped inside a traditional Japanese furoshiki, or carrying cloth, while counterparts from other industrialized countries appeared with sleek laptop computers.
Kazuyoshi Matsunaga, assistant director for the Foreign Ministry, said he’s embarrassed when he has to ask for faxes while his foreign colleagues exchange Internet addresses.
“I feel so isolated,” Matsunaga said. “But we have made big strides in the last couple years.”
