I'm a big fan of Zappos and their CEO Tony Hsieh who was at TED in Long Beach earlier this year. I love companies that focus on the employees. Do that well and great customer service should follow in a way that is natural and sincere. See the post by Robert Scoble "What San Francisco/Silicon Valley can learn from the Twittering company: Zappos." And watch this Nightline piece below. So many lessons here. Inspiring.

 http://scobleizer.com/2009/04/23/learn-from-zappos/

 

I had a presentation in Hiroshima Tuesday night so I decided to stay the night and spend some time in Hiroshima today. This clip above is a 5-min montage of clips I shot with a very low-rez (but convenient) Flip camera. All editing was done in Quick Time -- all cut & paste. That's it. It does not get any more basic than that. So yes, the quality is pretty low in every way, but it was very quick to put together on the train ride home. As for Hiroshima itself, it's perhaps my favorite city in Japan. As for the event that happened on Aug 6, 1945, well I think everyone in the world should visit Hiroshima and spend some time in the Memorial Museum and the Peace Park and reflect on the significance of that day. No one comes away from the park unchanged.
 
(Warning: Several of the photos in the video (in the middle section) are quite horrific but give the visitors to the museum at least some tiny glimpse of the terrible human suffering caused by the Atomic bomb.)
 
More info:
http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/index_e2.html

Also see short video from my trip to Nagasaki Peace Park in June this year.

The peace park is under the hypocenter.
 
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And no walking and smoking - rock on! Ironically, as soon as I took this pic, a drunk man began to pee in the steet behind me (argh!). Still, Hiroshima has its shitake togehlther - a very beautiful, clean little city.
 
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Hamish Gillies brings me to the hotel in Hiroshima in his beautiful Mini. Sweet car and perfect for Japan. Although now BMW, I believe the Minis are still made in Oxford, is that right? And yes, Hamish is British. Had a great time with the Hiroshima group -- great people!
 
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Shinkansen = bullet train. T- shirt sold at shin-Osaka station.
 
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In this 2-min clip Satish Kumar makes a few simple, important points. Here is a very short article from Resurgence Magazine on Elegant Simplicity: http://snipurl.com/gvte8

I think some of you may enjoy this. I do not point to this because of brilliant slides, but I think the presenter John Scholes makes a good, simple point, and he does it in a way that is memorable. This would have been better live in the room, obviously, so just try to imagine yourself there. Stick with it, the good bit starts at the 2:00 min mark.

Double entendre aside, this poster sticks out...Translation: "this banana has bone" (only bone is in kanji)
 
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A couple of years old now -- but Star Wars fans will get a kick out of it.