In the February, 2007, Harvard Business Review, there is a wonderful short piece on Entrepreneurial Japan. It notes how many trends — the end of guaranteed lifetime employment, changing governance structures, the changing social attitude toward independent entrepreneurship and an increase in the number of successful role models – are coming together to create a far more exciting environment for those who would like to do things differently.
This is such a wonderful development to hear about. And I’d like to draw attention here to one of our colleagues, Dr. Takeru Ohe, who has been trying to get Japanese business to think more entrepreneurially for several decades now. One of his latest ventures is to run a summer camp that teaches entrepreneurial skills to youngsters, hoping to take that next generation even further.
To put in a plug for Columbia – we are running a course on creating strategy in July (24-26) that I direct (which means I’m there the whole time) which hopes to draw on some of the entrepreneurial energy now infusing the economy. See the web site http://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/execed/open/programs/japan_strategy.cfm