Your idea for Japan

Recently, we were pointed at the new crowd sourcing initiative of our friends at HYVE – our partnering innovation company based  in Munich. They have again tapped from their large experience in innovation communities, but  now with the purpose to contribute to a higher cause. For their initiative, called ‘Your idea for Japan’, they have built an online platform that involves the entire internet community to source for ideas that can help the earthquake victims in Japan during their coming period of  reconstruction.

The initiative works as follows: register  easily and for free at their website. After registration, you can upload your particular idea for the reconstruction of Japan. For the first 1000 ideas that are submitted, $2,- is donated to the victims of the earthquake in Japan – the other big benefit obviously rests in the submitted  ideas. As benefactors at Hyve explain: “We want the Japanese victims to be the big winners of this campaign”.

Be sure to contribute your idea quickly, as the campaign only runs to May 16th!

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Cute Cute Cute

Japan is the country of Kawaii – meaning cute (amongst others). Doing some pretty serious retailing research in Japan we found out that even grown up businesses are heavily influenced by this miraculous little word.

Women determine what is bought and what not. Men get pocket money. Cars, food, travel goods, clothes,  anything really, bought by women. What do women want? Colour and pretty curves basically. This means that entire categories have to adopt to this and that foreign brands have to be well aware of the impact it has on their ranges. This combined with a very strong hype culture makes doing business in Japan tricky to say the least. Read the rest of this entry »

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