Japan's AI Gap Is an Infrastructure Problem
Japan is not behind in AI because it forgot how to build technology. It is behind because too many organizations lack the operating infrastructure to absorb new tools.
Read →Digital Infrastructure Is Business Infrastructure
Domains, DNS, inboxes, logins, recovery paths, websites, social accounts, and vendor access are business assets. In Japan, too many organizations only discover that after something breaks.
Read →Music in Japan Needs Better Paths to Discovery
A note on MusicInJapan.com, why Japan's live music ecosystem needs better public discovery, and how clearer digital paths help artists, venues, fans, and visitors.
Read →Akiya Are Not Cheap Houses. They Are Broken Information Systems.
Akiya are sold as cheap real estate, but the deeper problem is assets trapped behind weak data, unclear trust, local records, and missing interfaces.
Read →The Hidden Cost of Good Enough Systems in Japan
Good enough systems in Japan look cheap until growth, hiring, automation, succession, sale, or AI exposes the fragile operating layer underneath.
Read →The Japanese SME Stack Nobody Admits They Are Running
Many Japan SMEs run on LINE, Excel, paper, Chatwork, freee, shared drives, vendor portals, private memory, and one person who knows it all.
Read →Why Japan Digital Transformation Fails Before Buying Software
Japan digital transformation often fails before procurement, when workflow, data, ownership, and operating reality are never mapped clearly.
Read →Japan Does Not Lack Innovation. It Lacks Interfaces.
Japan has useful businesses, craft, technology, and ambition. The missing layer is often the interface that lets serious people find, trust, buy, and operate.
Read →Akiya Are a Data Problem Before They Are a Real Estate Opportunity
Matt Ketchum's Unpacking Japan conversation about abandoned Japanese buildings explains the MKUltraman approach to Japan business infrastructure: map the hidden system before buying the tool, property, or story.
Read →What Disaster Taught Me About Japan Digital Infrastructure
Matt Ketchum's 2011 experience in Miyako explains the infrastructure mindset behind MKUltraman's work with foreign-owned SMEs in Japan, overlooked industries, analog workflows, and fragile business systems.
Read →Daikin, Elliott, and the Japan Inc. Value Gap
Elliott's Daikin deck is less about activist drama and more about a blunt operating question: can Japan's best companies match engineering excellence with capital discipline?
Read →Earthen Wall Workshop in Yugawara: Bamboo, Clay, and Real Craft
Join Akiyaz in Yugawara on May 23, 2026 for a hands-on earthen wall workshop covering bamboo lattice techniques for Japanese mud walls.
Read →How to Kill the Fax: A Migration Path for Japan Businesses Still Running on Paper
Japan's fax dependency is real, but it's not a permanent condition. Here's a practical migration path for businesses that want to move off paper-based and fax-based workflows without destroying the relationships that depend on them.
Read →Review the subscriptions your business still needs
Software costs become difficult to judge when nobody has a complete list of subscriptions, owners and dependencies. Start by making the bill understandable.
Read →Fractional Technology Advisory for Japan-Side Operations
What recurring senior technology judgment covers, where it stops, and when a Japan-side operating team should use a project instead.
Read →Japanese Leadership Culture: The Price of the Concept of Wa
Japanese leadership culture prioritizes 'Wa' over results. We trace this crisis from the Ashikaga era to 2026 and offer a path to reinvention.
Read →Resident discounts and fair tourism pricing
A resident discount can protect local access while visitors help fund a destination. Its legitimacy depends on the rule, the explanation and how people experience it at the counter.
Read →Turning a business decision into working practice in Japan
A decision is not complete when everyone agrees in a meeting. Someone still needs to change the process, communicate it and check whether it works.
Read →What to watch as Japan's systems change
A visible change in technology or policy does not establish a change in daily operations. I am interested in where adoption becomes usable work, and where the announcement still runs ahead of the result.
Read →The systems behind a startup accelerator
An accelerator teaches through its own operation as well as its program. Applications, event information and introductions should be as usable as the advice offered on stage.
Read →What a public website can tell you about a business
A polished website can coexist with weak systems. It can also sit in front of a capable operation that is largely private. A public technical review should distinguish what it finds from what it cannot see.
Read →When the website looks better than the operation
A good-looking site is useful. The trouble starts when presentation becomes the evidence for capabilities nobody has tested.
Read →Useful introductions in Tokyo: Delphi and Startup Lady
A useful business introduction begins with understanding what the people involved need. My work with The Delphi Network makes that practical coordination more interesting to me than collecting another roomful of contacts.
Read →Foreign workers, public opinion and the limits of a headline
A poll about immigration can reveal attitudes. It cannot, by itself, establish crime trends or explain why respondents hold those attitudes.
Read →Digital literacy is part of running the business
A team can be skilled at its product and still struggle with shared files, permissions or basic reporting. Treat those gaps as working requirements rather than a source of embarrassment.
Read →Business renewal needs room for new entrants
Allowing weak businesses to close is not a complete renewal strategy. A region also needs a practical route for new employers, services and investment to arrive.
Read →Building a business around Japan's rural possibilities
My work in Japan has crossed music, property research and digital infrastructure. An Unpacking Japan conversation brought those experiences together around a recurring question: what does it take to turn interest in a place into useful work?
Read →Japanese Business: 7 Reasons a Disorganized Approach Hurts
Explore the damaging inertia in Japanese business culture where a 'disorganized approach' is accepted. Learn 7 reasons this mindset must change.
Read →Make an event findable before promoting it
An event announcement needs a stable page with a date, place and usable next action. If those details exist only in a poster or a disappearing message, interested people have extra work to do before they can attend.
Read →Keeping craft businesses workable
Preserving a craft includes the work of keeping its makers in business. Pricing, customer access, training and the ability to pass on skills deserve attention alongside the objects themselves.
Read →Training leaders through the work they actually do
Leadership training should change something a participant can do at work. Start with a difficult conversation, decision or team responsibility, then choose a format that gives people practice and useful feedback.
Read →Keep a business conversation moving
A missed acknowledgment can leave several people waiting without knowing who should act. Clear responses and a durable record of the next step prevent a small communication gap from becoming a larger operating problem.
Read →Selling from Japan when US import rules change
A change in small-parcel import treatment can alter the economics of selling to US customers. The response should start with the shipment, not a general claim that every Japanese product has become an opportunity.
Read →August 30-31: fire and fermentation in Chigasaki
This is the archived announcement for the August 30-31, 2025 Chigasaki gathering, with food, fire and fermentation on the Shonan coast. The event details below describe that announcement, not a current booking offer.
Read →Staying adaptable while doing business in Tokyo
Adaptability is useful when a new fact changes the plan. It is less useful as an excuse to keep changing direction before anybody can finish the work.
Read →Fewer missed messages, clearer working rules
A team can have several chat tools and still miss an important decision. Agree where different conversations belong, what response is expected and where the final record lives.
Read →Large AI investments and the work rural Japan still needs
A large technology investment attracts attention. A local business still needs customers, capable staff and systems that work. These are different scales of investment with different tests of success.
Read →Stop negotiating every meeting by email
Scheduling can consume more attention than the meeting deserves. A booking process is useful when it reduces coordination without giving strangers control of your working day.
Read →Logistics safety needs records people can trust
A safety procedure is only useful if it is carried out and its records reflect what happened. A completed form is not sufficient evidence of a completed check.
Read →Schedule an email when the response can wait
Writing an email late at night does not have to make it someone else's interruption. Delayed delivery is useful when the message can wait and the sender wants to finish composing it now.
Read →Deciding when to stop a project
Time already spent on a project does not establish that the next investment is worthwhile. Compare the remaining cost and likely benefit with the alternatives available now.
Read →Make a business introduction easier to follow up
A business card is useful if the person receiving it can remember you and take the next step. A digital card can support that handoff with current contact information and links to relevant work.
Read →Osaka Expo and the case for measuring lasting value
A national showcase invites a large argument about the future. I would rather begin with the decisions, costs and benefits that can actually be examined.
Read →What a megaproject should prove beyond opening day
A large public event can attract attention and still leave difficult questions about cost, responsibility and lasting benefit. Opening the gates answers only one of them.
Read →A visual identity people can recognize
I like a visual identity with some nerve. Color, illustration and unusual clothing can make an introduction memorable, provided the work behind them gives people a reason to stay interested.
Read →Helping craft businesses reach customers
A carefully made object still needs a workable route to a customer. Craft and commercial discipline can support each other when the maker's priorities and the buyer's needs are both understood.
Read →Finding useful information in overlooked Japan markets
An information gap can create an opportunity, but it can also hide costs. The job is to turn scattered material into a decision someone can defend.
Read →Technology should support the people providing care
A care technology should be assessed with the people receiving and providing care. Its value depends on whether it helps with a real task without adding an unreasonable burden or replacing human contact someone needs.
Read →Digital transformation starts with the analog process
A paper-based process can contain information a new application does not capture: who checks an exception, why a signature is needed or which supplier can only use the old channel.
Read →Give teams the skills to replace a legacy process
Replacing an old system takes more than access to a new application. People need the skills, authority and time to change the work that depends on it.
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