「ゆで蛙」 日本ヤフーの宮坂社長@長野県青年部総会 Boiled Frog: Yahoo Japan's CEO at Nagano Junior Innkeeper's Annual Mtg

May 14, 2013: 青い目のおもてなし This American’s Omotenashi

Yahoo Japan's president, Miyasaka-san

13日に長野県旅館ホテル組合会青年部の総会は白馬で行われた。白馬ひふみの丸山智彦さんが新しい部会長となった。
その時の講演会はヤフージャパンの宮坂学さん。

その講演のテーマは「ゆで蛙」。

つまり、蛙を鍋でゆでたら、最初は温度が気持ち良くなって、知らない内に危険となる。私達の会社にも、調子良い中の危険感を持つのが大事だと。

彼らのセオリーは「貴方の顧客は誰?貴方がいなくなると誰が困る?」との事を既に考える事。
それは長野県として考えると、顧客=山好きな人達。つまり、長野の一番の魅力は「山」。尚且つ、その山は日本の独特の感覚である「里山」。他の国は山と人の生活が離れていると。 ←確かに、英語で里山はどうやって表現するか、困っています。欧米ではその感覚がないかも。

そう思うと、亀清旅館がいなくなると誰が困るか、考えないといけない…

On the 13th, the annual meeting of the Nagano Junior Innkeepers Association was held. Hakuba Hifumi's Tomohiko Maruyama became our new leader. The keynote address was by Yahoo Japan's chairperson, Manabu Miyasaka.

The theme: Boiled Frog.

If you boil a frog in a pot of water, at first the frog enjoys the slowly raising temperature. But before he can do anything about it, the water reaches the deadly boiling point.

As a company, even if the numbers look comfortably good, it's imperative to always be on the lookout for danger.

One theory he uses is having each individual employee constantly remind his or herself who their customer is. Who would be inconvenienced if they were gone?

If applied to Nagano Prefecture, Miyasaka-san thinks it would be people who love mountains. For him, Nagano's biggest attraction is its mountains. And Japan's mountains are unique in that the distance between people and the mountains is minimal. Japan has a phrase "Satoyama", with 'sato' meaning 'home town', or 'my backyard', and 'yama' being mountain. I'm not sure how to exress that sentiment in English, perhaps because in English speaking countries mountains are considered wilderness.

Miyasaka-san's speech has me thinking who Kamesei Ryokan's customers are -- who would be inconvenienced if our inn were to go away...



新しい県部会長 白馬ひふみの丸山智彦さん
Our new leader: Maruyama-san from Hakuba Hifumi

白馬ひふみ Hakuba Hifumi





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