Simon Gibson - 27th Nov 2009
Bombarded by a cacophony of media, consumers today are becoming harder and harder to reach, requiring companies to look at new and innovative ideas to get their messages across. Lookmedia is a leading vendor of creative and cutting edge outdoor advertising solutions that helps companies target the people they need to reach. Denphone's Simon Gibson caught up with Lookmedia Japan's Managing Director Mark Long recently for a chat about just what it is that makes Lookmedia special.
Simon: So Mark, first of all can you give us some background about how Lookmedia got started?
Mark: Lookmedia was born when a couple of surfers in Australia had the idea of towing signboards around the beach. So they bought a couple of scooters with custom built trailers. The idea took off and although they initially thought it would be a bit of a fad, the novelty never really wore off. The idea then spread through friends and now there are branches around the world in Asia, North and South America, Europe, as well as throughout Australia. As time went on, realizing they needed to grow their company, they started new products and one of those products was the LookWalker [shown above, ed.]. The LookWalker is the product we launched with in Japan.
Simon: So how did you get involved in Lookmedia?
Mark: I personally got involved while I was living in Korea and a friend started the Lookmedia office in Korea. At that time, I wanted to come to Japan and saw Japan as a good market, so I came to Japan with the same business model. I came to Japan in early 2007 and did 6 months of research - meeting potential clients, and sorting out things like company registration, finding office space and employees and getting a feel for the place. We registered the company in February 2008 - coming up on 2 years now and things have gone from strength to strength.
We first started out approaching the big advertising companies here in Japan like Dentsu to gauge their interest for our solution. It was a bit of a catch 22 situation though as they wanted to see a track record before using our services, and we couldn't show a track record without doing some work for them. And from our side, we wanted to get a sale before launching the company.
Luckily we got a good contract with Avex Entertainment promoting the launch of an album by the Japanese musician BoA and then at the same time another contract with Study Abroad Australia. The Australian Embassy rents out a building in Shinjuku for a weekend to promote study abroad and provide information for potential students, and our role was to get out on the street and build up interest for that. So for a month leading up to that we were out on the street. We had our walkers trained up and they were ready to answer questions about the campaign. Our campaigns are good for that - both eye catching and informative.
Simon: Any advice for companies looking to setup shop here in Japan?
Mark: The trick for me for setting up here in Japan was that, before we went ahead and registered the company we did our ground work. That 6 months spent approaching customers, doing presentations and really listening to what people wanted, and then getting the sales before kicking off was really important. We didn't want to have to pay rent or staff before getting a sale, except for a part timer who went round the offices with me.
That's a good tip for setting up effectively here. And also, it is all about connections here, keeping in contact with the people you meet and getting introductions from them.
Simon: And how did things develop from there?
Mark: Then we got some large contracts. One of our biggest selling points is that we are very eco-friendly. One of the bigger projects we did was for SnoLa, a natural frozen yoghurt chain entering the Japanese market; everthing to do with their business is eco-friendly. They didn't want to use trucks or buses so we picked that one up. Volvo were another company who took us on at that point and we helped with the release of the Volvo C30. The campaigning was very targeted, and that was the main reason they went with us, because we could directly target the 20-30 year old market that they were after. We sent the walkers out to the fashionable parts of Tokyo such as Harajuku, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Roppongi and Ginza.
From there we took the idea down to Osaka, Kobe and the Kansai region. That is now our second largest market and keeps us very busy. We also picked up Tower Records, with the reason being that we could be very targeted and could combine giveaways and samples along with the visual element. It was just what they were looking for. We picked up numerous other clients ranging from real estate companies, fashion houses (especially for opening events) and companies such as Bandai. Bandai are Japans largest toy manufacturer and third in the world. They used us to target Akihabara and Harajuku giving away samples.
Simon: You mentioned that your walkers can also answer questions. Can you tell us about how you prepare them for a job?
Mark: We sit down with the client and create a campaign manual which goes into a lot of detail looking at the number of people required, where to walk, what times to target, whether uniforms are required and if so how they should be tailored, what samples are required. We also have a question and answer section that we go through with the client and think about what questions the public will ask and then we train the walkers to answer those questions.
For example, this year Japanese TV stations have become our biggest customers, particularly for the release of TV dramas and sports events, so we will sit down with the clients and work out when the drama is on, who it is starring, how long it will run for, who did the music and so on. It means that our walkers are not just mobile billboards but also sources of information.
Simon: One thing I am always curious about when thinking about advertising and marketing, is how to judge the effectiveness of campaigns. Could you tell us about the metrics of your campaigns? How do they work out for the client?
Mark: Metrics are hard, but I can tell you one about a couple of campaigns we did where we saw very satisfying results. We were contracted by Nagoya City to help raise participation in the Nagoya local government election. We had to compete with numerous different companies to get the contract but we won the contract especially because of our mobility.
Over the last 10 years there has been a large decline in voting in Nagoya especially among young people. So we pitched the idea of targeting universities, shopping areas and train stations to directly focus on younger voters. For 10 days leading up to the election we had 8 walkers out from 7am to 9pm at different times of the day at specific locations - for example, the train stations early in the morning, at the universities during lunch time and then at shopping malls in the evenings so that we could best target these younger voters. This campaign was probably the most successful we have taken part in with a significant change in the turnout of voters.
Another job we did in Nagoya also had very positive results. NTT Flets TV do a campaign every March to increase sign ups for their service. We had 26 boards out for 4 days and the campaign doubled the number of sign ups. Now, it was part of a larger campaign, so we can't say we were solely responsible for that. But we do get repeat customers, and if our campaigns weren't working we wouldn't get those repeats. So our customers are satisfied.
Simon: What is the best way for clients to use your services?
Mark: Think about the Hachiko statue in Shibuya. Now if someone went out and booked us for a year, every Saturday and Sunday, to stand on the corner in Omote Sando for example, then that would be something people are going to be talking about. It would build something iconic. You can do a campaign for one weekend, but you have to look at the bigger picture and build up the brand - and for that continued exposure is the key. If you had the walkers out every weekend, you would have people saying "Meet me at the XXXX walkers in Omote Sando" and that would be gold.
Simon: Now for the Denphone section! Can you tell us why you went with out telephone solution for your business here in Japan?
Mark: It was the perfect solution to the problem I had. I was moving office and didn't want to lose the number I currently have, and that got me thinking long term. In Japan telephone numbers are not normally portable, so I wanted to find a solution where I could keep a universal number - even if I move again in the future I can keep the same phone and fax numbers. The pricing is reasonable - most of my phone costs come from mobile phone charges anyway and it was costing more with NTT because of the cost of forwarding to a cell phone. It is cheaper especially with the 2 lines I have now. We used to have the fax on the same line as the phone which was a pain - people had to call up to say I am going to send a fax, please don't answer the phone, and then we couldn't use the phone.
Also, with 40% of our business in Osaka and the Kansai region, options such as being able to add an Osaka number, or even connecting offshore employees to numbers in Japan cheaply is really appealing.
Simon: Thanks for that - glad you are happy with our service. Before we wrap up, what can you do to help companies here in Japan?
The main thing that Lookmedia can help with is product launches, brand building and long term advertising. We are really good at creating buzz for product launches, especially for small companies. Most small companies could never afford to rent a billboard in Roppongi or Shinjuku, or take out an advertisement in one of the major Japanese newspapers - the numbers just don't add up. For a small company, we can offer something just as effective that will get the same exposure and at a price that people can afford. We also interact really well with the public - something a newspaper advertisement or a billboard cannot do. We can convey your message and answer questions and give out goods. For example we recently did a promotion for a watch company - it was a very technical watch, something gadget freaks would be interested in. So we stood outside of the Sony Building here in Tokyo and handed out 4000 fliers. You can guarantee that everyone in the building was talking about the watch over lunch, and building that kind of word of mouth advertising is invaluable. It's unique and gets a buzz going.
: Denphone Digest :: November 2009 :: Volume 1, Number 8 :
September Issue
In this issue we take a look at an exciting up and coming company called Inferret who specialize is voice and text recognition apps for handsets such as the iPhone. We also have a short how to about displaying twitter feeds on Polycom desk phones, and we introduce an interesting IP phone - a hotel phone from Japanese manufacturer Nakayo.
As ever, if you would like to see something featured in Denphone Digest, feel free to contact us and we will see what we can do for you.
If you are having trouble reading this email version, click to read the web version: http://www.denphone.com/denphone-digest-November-2009.
In this issue:
The last few months have seen some quite dramatic changes for many companies as the global economy has been getting back on its feet. At Denphone we have been kept busy with a large number of clients pulling the trigger on projects that they had been keeping on the back burner.
We have completed stage two of a major upgrade of our Tokyo data center allowing our clients to enjoy significantly greater SIP and IAX2 trunking capacity while at the same time enjoying the safety of triple redundancy. We have also released version 1.5 of our MicroPBX - now with an even smaller footprint and with support for 10 users - twice what was previously possible.
We are also completing a POP in Yokohama allowing us to offer our clients 045 prefix phone numbers in addition to our existing Tokyo 03 and Osaka 06 services.
Huw R. Williams
President
Denphone K.K.
The interview with Inferret has been moved here: Ferreting out the answers: Natural Language Processing and Speech Recognition with Inferret.
Simon Gibson
Twitter was launched in 2006 with the idea that small groups could be kept up to date with what an individual was doing. So for example, if you were walking down the street and saw a cool new pizza place, you could send a short message to all your friends and if they were free, they could come and join you.
At Denphone we are currently working on a presence solution, and while working on that, one thing that popped up as an idea was getting twitter messages to display on the screens of our office phones. With a private group on twitter, it would be possible to use this as a department or company wide broadcast system; especially in conjunction with a BCP system.
The Polycom handsets that we use and recommend, include a number of models that support an xml browser. We have tested the twitter message display on the following models: Polycom Soundpoint 450, 550, 601, and 650. We haven't yet tested this system on Cisco VoIP phones, however it should work in the same way.
Setting up Twitter Message Display
There are three parts to setting up Twitter message display on Polycom phones. First you need to use the Twitter API to draw down the tweets and put them into an XML format that the phones can understand, then you need a web server for the phones to pull the messages from, and finally you need to set up the phones to poll for the messages. Setting up a webserver is a pretty common task, so we wont look at that here - if you need, you can refer to: Ubuntu LAMP Server - Setup Guide with Desktop GUI or for OS X: How to setup Apache, PHP, & MySQL on Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard).
The Twitter API
The Twitter API provides developers with a simple, easy to work with way to access what is happening on Twitter. Information about the twitter API can be found here: http://apiwiki.twitter.com/. A great number of developers have produced wrappers for interacting with the api in a large number of languages including ruby, python, php and many more. I just wanted to keep things simple so I chose one of the php wrappers. It was created by Ashley from papermashup.com and uses curl, php and xml. You can grab the original code here: http://papermashup.com/using-the-twitter-api/.
I simplified Ashley's code quite a bit - the Polycom phones only support either monochrome, or 2 or 4 bit greyscale images, and don't have much screen space so I didn't want to display avatar pictures.
Here is the hacked down code: http://www.denphone.com/files/code/twitter-polycom.txt.
Polycom Phone Settings
Polycom handsets, being IP phones - with their own processor - are very powerful machines with a huge range of options available to meet just about any possible need. Polycom also offer great resources for developers, and to get twitter displaying on the phones, I used the "Web Application Developer's Guide for the Polycom Soundpoint IP/ Soundstation IP Family (SIP 3.1)" which can be downloaded here.
To set up the phones to receive the twitter feeds you need to edit either the sip.cfg file (normally in the /etc/asterisk folder) or the individual phoneXXX.cfg files. Editing the sip.cfg file means that all phones will use the same feed, editing the individual files means you can assign different groups within an organization to their own specific feed.
In either of the files, add a microbrowser section with mb.idleDisplay.home, in our case this was: mb.idleDisplay.home=http://192.168.1.44/polycom/twitter.php.
Other options you can set include:
- Http proxy - mb.proxy=192.168.1.1:8080
- Home page - mb.main.home=http://www.denphone.com/
- Page refresh - mb.idleDisplay.refresh=10
More commands can be found in the developers guide on pages 2-36 to 2-38. One thing to note regarding page refresh - that sets the number of seconds before the idle page is refreshed - is to be aware of any limitations to the number of API calls you can do per hour or day. Twitter limits api calls to 100 per hour, so setting it to refresh to say every 30 seconds means that the feed will fail to display once you reach the 100 call limit.
Basically any feed - not just twitter - can be supported. So if your users need stock prices, echange rates or even cricket scores showing up on their phones, then that can be quite easily achieved.
The article talking about the Nakoyo hotel phone can be found here: Featured product: Nakayo SIP Hotel Phone.
Gary Binda
Unlike most Business Contigingency incidents which hit us unexpectedly and need instant action, a pandemic gives us the luxury of time to prepare. Do not let that time be wasted! If you use the next six months to strengthen your pandemic plan you will be ready when the real thing arrives.
Hopefully this article will give you the arguments you need to convince all stake holders in your organization that we are in a lull and that now is not the time to relax.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said we should remain on alert. The current 'round of activity' might have peaked, WHO official Gregory Hartl said, but that did not mean it was over. 'There is a high possibility that this virus will come back", he said.
Previous pandemics, including the Spanish Flu outbreak of 1918, have been seen to start with a mild strain breaking out in small pockets and followed by the pandemic later in the year. So the chances are that we will see a more extensive outbreak (and possibly a full pandemic) - especially as we move into the colder winter months.
For anyone who has to manage the pandemic planning for their organization, or would like to see some in place if there is none, use the WHO information to stress that we are not out of the woods yet.
What steps should you be taking to ensure you are prepared for a pandemic? The advise below comes from the various Government pandemic planning departments and outlines neatly the high level actions which should be taken.
To reduce the impact of these potential problems, businesses will need to ensure that they have a pandemic plan, and I would also add that you should arrange for a test of your pandemic plan as soon as possible.
To be as prepared for further out breaks, organizations should have:
- Identified critical activities that must be maintained and, by implication, what work could be deferred
- Identified the resources needed to deliver these, particularly staff
- Considered both the number of staff and which specialist skills, knowledge or authority are required to ensure continuity of core business areas
- Made available the information required by those staff who might be required to deputize for others
- Put in place arrangements so changes in work priorities can be implemented and resources realigned, in order to maintain critical business activities
- Put in place arrangements to maintain good communications with staff, customers and suppliers
The big news at the moment concerns Skype's possible plans to opensource development of the Skype platform. This would be a sound response to the threat Skype face from Google voice. It would allow Skype to focus on the termination side of the business (which is where their revenue is generated) while giving something back to the community. And this builds well on the work that Skype has been doing with Asterisk and with Digium to broaden the range of offerings they have and to dig their way deeper into the realm of business services.
Stories Swirling About Skype's Source
November 2nd, 2009 by Justin Ryan
The rumor mill is alive and well in the Open Source world, as demonstrated by wildly spreading speculation about the possibility of an Open Source Linux client from the popular Skype VOIP service.
The commotion began over the weekend with a blog post from a Mandriva user reporting that Skype Technical Support had indicated, then confirmed, that an Open Source Skype client for Linux is in the works. [The post in question is a French-language source, our information regarding it is taken from an English-language summary.]
The news quickly spread, and ultimately resulted in a blog post from Skype developer Stanislav Karchebny (known as "Berkus"), confirming that an Open Source client for Linux is indeed in development. Karchebny declined to comment on the details, but did state that the client "will be a part of larger offering." He spoke of adoption "in the "multicultural" land of Linux distributions" and the promise of rapid advancements - hallmarks of Open Source development. He promised that updates will be forthcoming - Skype's idea of regular updates and the Linux community's expectations, however, do not necessarily sync up.
Some have questioned why the move should be of particular import, given the variety of Linux-compatible VOIP options already available. The most obvious is, fittingly enough, the news itself: Skype will have an Open Source client. Regardless of the market, number of users, or general usefulness, any time the makers of a proprietary product choose to embrace Open Source, that in itself is an important event. Adding allies to our community is as important as adding products to our systems.
Beyond the victory itself, there is the matter of access. There are a number of high quality open VOIP clients to choose from, most of which can communicate with one another out of the box, but only Skype can communicate with Skype. It may be lagging behind in Linux users, but Skype has heavy adoption from users of the market-leading operating system - users on the other side of the wall, so to speak. It's fine to point out the existence of other options - particularly when they are superior, as Open Source software often is - but when the users you're trying to reach aren't reachable, it doesn't do a lot of good. It's rather like being told that you can always mail domestically when all your contacts are abroad.
The move, if it materializes, will likely be of particular interest to business users. More and more businesses, particularly small businesses, are adopting Skype as a way to keep communication costs low - we know from experience. Having an Open Source client that can spread to all Linux distributions will open the door not just for those already using Linux in business, but will strike down one more barrier for those looking to leave their current operating system for Linux. That, like the move in itself, is nothing to be sneezed at.
You can read the original article on the Linux Journal website here: Stories Swirling About Skype's Source.
Japan's 32 Best iPhone Apps (All Available In English)
by Serkan Toto on September 6, 2009
It's not really a secret that Japan is absolutely crazy about cell phones. And even though domestic makers churn out more than 100 different handsets every year (some of which are simply amazing), the iPhone is selling over here. SoftBank Mobile, the country's exclusive iPhone provider, doesn't release official data, but estimates put sales in Japan at well over one million units so far - not bad at all in this hopelessly over-saturated market. In other words, Japan doesn't hate the iPhone, as some blogs suggested in the past. It never did.
The local developer community has noticed and produced a slew of apps aimed at a global audience. What follows is my subjective selection of the 'best' of these made-in-Japan apps, all of which are at least available in English.
We certainly look forward to seeing companies like Inferret being listed in such write ups in the future.
You can read the original article on the Tech Crunch website here: Japan's 32 Best iPhone Apps (All Available In English).
Britain's Oldest Working Computer Roars to Life
Wired's Gadget Lab have an interesting article up that talks about efforts to bring Englands oldest functional computer back to life. Construction began on the "Wolverhampton Instrument for Teaching Computing from Harwell" - also known as the Harwell Computer, and later as the Harwell Dekatron Computer or the Harwell WITCH - back in 1949. It became operational in April 1951. Assembled from components more commonly found in a British telephone exchange, it is a decimal machine with 40 8-digit decatron registers for internal storage. Having been in storage for the last 30 years, it is now being restored to its former glory.
Britain's Oldest Working Computer Roars to Life
The Harwell computer, also known as WITCH, is getting a second lease on life at the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park. The machine is the oldest surviving computer whose programs, as well as data, are stored electronically, according to the museum.
The Harwell WITCH is a relay-based machine that used 900 Dekatron gas-filled tubes, each of which could hold a single digit in memory. It has paper tape for both data input and program storage. The computer was used in the design of Britain's first nuclear reactors. (Read more about the computers used at Harwell in the 1940s and 1950s.)
'Its promises for reliability over speed were certainly met ' it was definitely the tortoise in the tortoise and the hare fable,' says Kevin Murrell, a director and trustee of The National Museum of Computing. 'In a race with a human mathematician using a mechanical calculator, the human kept pace for 30 minutes, but then had to retire exhausted as the machine carried on remorselessly. The machine once ran for ten days unattended over a Christmas and New Year holiday period.'
Click on the following link to read the rest of the article: Britain's Oldest Working Computer Roars to Life. Wikipedia also has an article (which we borrowed from) here: WITCH (computer).
For those interested, the picture at the beginning of this months newsletter is from: http://panicbuttonblog.com/2008/09/23/random-funny-phone-man/.
Denphone to exhibit at Call Center/CRM Demo & Conference Tokyo
Denphone is proud to announce that they will be exhibiting at this years Call Center/CRM Demo & Conference Tokyo to be held November 12th and 13th at Sunshine City in Ikebukero.
The Call Center/CRM Demo & Conference Tokyo is Japan's leading tradeshow for Call Center and CRM solutions with vendors exhibiting a wide range of hardware, software and services for the call center and customer center industries.
Denphone will be focusing their SIP and IAX2 trunking solutions, as well as managed voice services. This is a good chance to meet up with a representative from Denphone to find out how telephony related technology is moving forward and what new solutions there are now available to both reduce your company's expenditure while increasing employee effectiveness.
Denphone will be giving away 2 IP phones to people who visit their booth - so visit us to be in to win!
The event will be held at Sunshine City Ikebukuro: (http://www.sunshinecity.co.jp/ (Japanese language only).)
For more information (Japanese only) please see
http://www.callcenter-japan.com/.
VoIP & Asterisk Lounge November 11th, 2009
The next VoIP & Asterisk Lounge will be held Thursday, November 11th, from 6pm at Cafe Lolita in Azabujuban, Tokyo. This monthly event is a great chance to meet and network with other Asterisk and VoIP users and developers in the Tokyo region.
- Cost: Free Entrance (drinks are between 500 and 900yen)
- Directions: From Azabujuban Station Exit 7 (Oedo or Namboku Lines),turn right and walk 2 minutes towards Roppongi Hills.
- Alternatively, exit at Roppongi station and walk down the hill towards Azabujuban (10 minute walk). Turn left when you get to Tsutaya. Cafe Lolita is on your left.
We look forward to seeing you there!
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About Denphone
Denphone K.K. is Japan's leading provider of open PC based VOIP Telephone PBX systems. Denphone supplies Digium / Asterisk solutions, Cisco, Polycom, Nortel, snom and Grandstream phone and video systems as well as our own bespoke solutions.
Contact Denphone
Denphone is centrally located in Tokyo's Minato Ward in Azabujuban. We can be contacted by telephone on 03-4550-1405, via this contact page or by reply to the address this magazine was sent from.
Our postal address is: #402 Azabu Nagasaka Bd, 1-4-8 Azabujuban, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0045 Japan.
: Denphone Digest :: June 2009 :: Volume 1, Number 6 :
June Issue
In this issue of Denphone Digest we take a look at some of the new Accutone headsets now available from Denphone, 12 tips to help with office moves from an IT perspective, as well as some of the recent news from Polycom and Cisco.
If you work or have worked on a trading floor or in a call center you are probably familiar with using a headset instead of a handset to make telephone calls. Headsets are recommended by the American Physical Therapy Association, many chiropractors, doctors and physios as promoting good posture in the workplace. They also free up your hands to use a computer, take notes while speaking, check documents and generally be more effective when speaking with clients or colleagues.
We use headsets in the office here at Denphone, and they really do make a difference to employee performance.
Denphone stock Accutone headsets, with support for a wide range of phones including Cisco, Polycom, Nortel and Avaya.
In this issue we also take a look at office moves, something that many companies in Tokyo seem to be contemplating at the moment as they look to reduce costs following headcount reductions. With that in mind, we spoke to Toshiyuki Inoue who is Senior Co-ordinator for Office Sekkei, a leading Japanese office furniture and office planning company. We also offer 12 tips for smooth office moves from an IT perspective - sharing some of the experience we have gained helping companies move into new premises in Japan.
As ever, if you would like to see something featured in Denphone Digest, feel free to contact us and we will see what we can do for you.
In this issue:
Like all businesses, at Denphone we are always looking for ways to increase our efficiency and productivity. It's easy to overlook the negative impact of small things like juggling a phone handset while you are searching for a document or an email. I started using a headset about two years ago, and have found it quite liberating. I really suggest you give one a try, having two hands free while calling makes a big difference. We recommend, and sell both Accutone and Sennheiser headsets
Huw R. Williams
President
Denphone K.K.
Moving or opening an office in a foreign country can be a daunting task. Especially in a country like Japan where a significant language barrier exists, finding the right office for your company is a time consuming process that can be very confusing if you don't have the right experience and the hard work doesn't stop once you have found that perfect new space. It has only just begun.
Denphone's Simon Gibson spoke to Toshiyuki Inoue recently about Office Sekkei, the company he works for, and what they have to offer to companies looking to set up an office in Japan. Office Sekkei was founded in 1973 and has model offices in Japan in Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sappora and Fukuoka as well as branches in England, France, Germany and the United States of America.
Simon: Can you tell us what is important when setting up an office in Japan?
The project manager you appoint is very important. You can choose a project manager from an architect like Office Sekkei, a real estate agency in Tokyo or from a law firm; that is quite common and they will manage the process. They will check the age of the building, make sure the paperwork is all in order, and find out about the landlord - whether they are friendly or greedy or helpful. They will help with advice like that as well as checking things like how far the building is from the station, what the power supply is, and so on.
Simon: I heard of a company who lost most of their staff because they moved from a Tokyo location to a location on an industrial site in Kanagawa. How important do you think location is in Japan?
Basically, what area you are in is very important. Tokyo has 23 wards, and being in one of those wards is fine I think. Once you get too far out of Tokyo it can become a problem, both for clients visiting your office, and for staff traveling to and from work. I know of one company that was located in Odaiba, which is a good location. They wanted to move to a cheaper location, however that turned into a big source of conflict between management and the labor union. Management weren't able to get buy in from the union and the company wasn't able to move to where they wanted to go. That kind of thing happens in Japan. It is always really important to remember to find a place near a station that your staff can travel to easily.
Simon: How can Office Sekkei help with office moves? What sort of services does your company offer?
Office Sekkei offers a wide range of office services including consulting, refurbishment, building management, planning and layouts. We can also prepare all the documents required - from proposal to quotation as well as contracts, in either English or Japanese depending on our clients needs.
We are dealers in a wide range of Japanese furniture brands as well the world famous Herman Miller brand. We can also supply used furniture where required.
Simon: What sort of trends are we seeing today in office furniture in Japan?
Lighter color woods are very popular. Darker woods such as mahogany and walnut used to be popular, but today we are seeing more people moving to lighter color furniture with woods such as maple and cherry becoming much more fashionable.
Japanese chairs, and furniture in general, can be a bit small for western people as well as younger generation Japanese people. A good chair is very important, but I don't think the desk is as important. My favorite chair is the Aeron Chair by Herman Miller and I highly recommend that to our clients from abroad.
Meeting room furniture is also changing. With the growing use of the internet, video conferencing and power point presentations, we are seeing more meeting rooms equipped to be used as media centers. So it is much more common today to find meeting room tables equipped with wire ducts to keep everything neat and tidy. Japanese furniture manufacturers tend to copy American and European manufacturers so we are now seeing features like those and that copy features from the American "neocon" furniture movement and the European "orgatech" movements showing up in Japanese furniture designs.
Work quality is much more important to Westerners than it is to Japanese; especially in more traditional Japanese companies. There is still that thing where in a Japanese company, an employee will stay late and do overtime when another employee has extra work to do, even though she has nothing to do herself (this is called "giri-zangyou"). This kind of thinking can also be seen in the office furniture used by a lot of more traditional Japanese companies - they tend just to go for the cheapest they can find and don't consider productivity gains which can be made by using top quality chairs or the problems that poor ergonomic design can cause.
Simon: Thank you for taking the time to talk to us today.
Simon Gibson
With the difficult current economic situation continuing, there are a lot of companies in Tokyo downsizing. This often means that the amount of office space currently occupied is in excess of a company's needs. Moving to a smaller office also allows for significant reductions in rental fees, and the corporate real estate market in Tokyo is certainly a renters market at the moment.
Moving office is also an excellent chance to renegotiate IT and telephony support contracts and to look at cost savings related to international calling plans, ISDN solutions such as Softbanks Otoku line, and general IT support contracts.
At Denphone we have a great deal of experience helping companies save money both during and after moving office. Below are some of the things to look out for and think about when making an office move - from an IT perspective.
- Power supply - It is important to check where the power supply enters the site and the ease of connecting the power supply to your new server room. Also it is important to check the wattage available to make sure that the power supply is adequate for your needs. If you have equipment sourced overseas, you will also need to make sure what voltage it is running at, as this is quite often not documented. It is worthwhile having an electrician check the power supply to make sure everything is in order.
- Server rack location - We recommend a separate room for your server rack(s) as this allows various advantages including a closed environment for air conditioning and air quality control, the ability to secure physical access to your equipment and also to reduce the amount of noise released into the office workspace.
- Cabling - While it is possible to daisy chain phones and computers off the same ethernet cable run, and even to add hubs or switches at the work group desk level, this can lead to network performance problems including slow or unreliable system access. For this reason, and because it increases network security we recommend two runs of cabling to each work space. With two runs, users are still able to access the intranet or internet if they accidentally unplug the phone, and it allows the traffic to be divided in the server room at the switching level for greater redundancy and security. Ideally cabling is installed before office furniture is moved in.
- Building access - It is important to check entrance width and height, elevator width and height (especially for server rack). Also, check with the landlord about where parking is possible and if there are any special restrictions on this.
- Timing - Offshore / head office IT staff may need to be online so installation of servers, your PBX etcetera, needs to be timed with them.
- Internet connection - For clients in Tokyo we recommend KVH lines, as these offer 24 by 7 bi-lingual support. If you are located in the countryside you will probably have to use NTT or KDDI lines. Generally speaking if you are using VoIP to save costs on your calls to head office outside of Japan, residential grade connections such as ADSL do not provide sufficient bandwidth or quality for business use with more than a few users. You will also need to confirm where the circuits enter the office space and where the demarcation point is.
- Floor plan - A floor plan is very important as it allows for effective planning of things such as cabling and work station locations. It also allows the creation of a switch port plan to allocate phones and computer connections from.
- Data backup - We recommended that a full backup of all relevant data be made prior to the move. A copy should be sent to a separate location for business contingency planning purposes; often this copy is sent to head office for safekeeping. Another copy should be kept in an easily accessible format such as blu ray and stored within the Tokyo office in case of server failure after relocation takes place.
- Contact list. A contact list is very useful especially if connection to the companies CRM system is lost during the move. The contact list should include a list of all responsible parties - including the moving company, real estate company, US IT side, local Japan IT vendor as well as local staff and building maintenance staff.
- Phone connection (IP, ISDN/BRI or PRI) - Moving office is a good chance to switch to a less expensive VoIP based phone system. With all digital VoIP systems, there are three main ways to connect, over an IP connection, an ISDN line (known as a INS64 line in Japan or as BRI in the rest of the world) or PRI line(s) depending on the call volume. For ISDN, we suggest either NTT or Softbank. For PRI circuits we recommend KVH. For IP connections we offer our own solution called IAX connect, but we do support the other carriers. We will be happy to discuss the options available. When moving, there may be a change in your phone numbers required. When acquiring new phone numbers (DID's or DDI's) we recommend you check whether they are transferable in any contract you sign.
- New location address - Not specifically IT related, but choosing a location wisely is very important in Japan. For your clients it is important as they will judge your company depending on whether you are located in Shibuya or Nishi-Hachioji. And your stuff will vote with their feet if you choose to relocate to a place that is difficult to get to. Remember in Japan that most people take the train to the office - if you aren't close to a convenient station it becomes very difficult to retain staff and to hire new employees.
- Analog phone line for fax - VoIP and asterisk-based PBX systems do support fax, but we usually recommend an analog fax line. If you do business with a lot of Japanese companies, especially more traditional companies you will find that they still send a vast majority of their documents by fax.
Denphone announces Accutone Reseller Launch
Denphone is proud to announce that it is partnering with global headset manufacturer, Accutone, to sell Accutone's line of professional headsets in Japan.
Headsets have an image of being used in call centers. This is not really surprising given that they increase the effectiveness of people on the phone. Employees are much more productive when using headsets - and not just in call centers - but also in sales, research, IT help desk environments or in any area where a person spends a lot of time on the phone.
One of the biggest advantages of using a headset is being able to type with both hands at the same time, meaning that it is much easier to respond to inquiries - for example, employees can compose emails as they are speaking.
And headsets are not expensive, giving excellent return on investment.
Accutone headsets work with a wide range of phones, including handsets made by Polycom, Cisco, Avaya, and Nortel.
Elegant Series TM710 Professional Monoaural Headset
The Accutone TM710 Professional Monoaural Headset features:
- Perfect balance of strong durability and lightweight
- Flexible and rotatable ear-piece provides great comfort
- Lightweight design perfect for extended usage
- Extendable soft-metal headband fits all head size
- Noise canceling microphone for high traffic noisy environments
- Acoustic shock protection circuitry
- Quick disconnecting cable included
We have been trialling this headset in the office and found it wonderful to use.
Denphone has these headsets for sale at only 10,800 yen per unit. Discounts for bulk orders are possible, so contact Denphone for a quotation.
The TM710 headset is available from the Denphone webshop: click here for the Accutone Elegant Series TM710 Professional Monoaural Headset in English, or here for the Accutone TM710J 片耳式ヘッドセット in Japanese.
Accutone AC004 Training Cable
The Accutone AC004 Training Cable is perfect for call center based business who are looking to help mentor and improve the performance of their telemarketers.
A trainer simply plugs in a second headset to this training cord and is able to listen in to the calls made by an employee, allowing fast and easy feedback to be given as well as points for improvement to be quickly noted and acted on.
This cable works with a wide range of phones including Nortel, Cisco, Polycom, Avaya and other manufacturers.
Denphone currently has these cables available for 4400 yen. Discounts for bulk orders are also possible for this unit.
The TM710 headset is available from the Denphone webshop: click here for the Accutone AC004 Y-Training Cable in English, or here for the AC004 トレーニング用Y型ケーブル in Japanese.
Denphone BCP Program
The Denphone Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Consulting Practice offers one of the broadest range of customized services in the industry.
- Information Availability Strategy
- Business Availability Plans
- Technology Availability Plans
- BCP Plan building and testing programs
- Business Impact Analysis (BIA)
- BCP Audit services
Keeping Information and People Connected is our purpose: to help protect and recover our customer’s critical data, their IT infrastructure, business processes, and their employee productivity.
The Value of Information Availability:
Having information always available is both an IT and business imperative. It’s about remaining productive, viable, and competitive. It’s about customers, business partners, and employees at every level. It’s about anticipating threats and maintaining uptime. It’s about the readiness to exploit opportunities and grow.
Which options are right for you: You want to know that your critical systems will always be on for your business to stay in business. Managed Services and Replication Services can help address your production needs.
We deliver integrated enterprise-wide solutions choosing best of breed technologies, to craft solutions that address your specific availability needs and help optimize your spend. True information availability is built to help keep people and information connected through technology.
As part of its comprehensive portfolio of Information Availability solutions, Denphone KK offers products to support Business Continuity Planning, testing and notification functions.
With BIA, you'll gather and plan information with expertly designed surveys to assist in building and maintaining BCP plans.
With Incident Manager you'll have the ability to manage any disruption you may encounter.
With BCP Audit you will have the ability to identify and rectify gaps in your overall BCP planning program.
You can't control whether or not your organization is affected by a natural disaster, power outage, terrorist attack or other unplanned incident. But you can work to ensure that your business is prepared to respond to and recover from such issues with minimal impact.
The light at the end of the tunnel - Positive news from Cisco and Polycom
The big news in IT this month is of course Cisco. Following on from the relase of Cisco blade servers, comes the announcement that Cisco will be launching a range of rackmount servers to extend its Unified Computing System. The Cisco “C Series” will offer both 1U and 2U servers with extended memory capabilities built on top of the Intel Xeon 55000 processor. These new products offer an entry point to the lower adapter and cable footprint enabled by the Unified Computing System (UCS) for companies who've built their data centers using rackmount servers instead of blades.
For many global companies who have a single vendor policy, moving to Cisco servers will be an easy choice (despite the higher cost generally of a single vendor policy), and the memory capabilities of these servers certainly make them an appealing prospect - with options including 96GB and 384GB. From an environmental perspective too, these servers make a lot of sense - it will be possible to replace a number of older servers with these, and significantly reduce the amount of electricity required to power one's datacenter.
Cisco have also been promoted to the Dow Jones industrial average, which tracks the share prices of America's top 100 companies. Justin Ryan from the Linux Journal had this to say about Cisco and the Dow:
Cisco To Join The Dow -- And Will Take Linux With It
June 4th, 2009 by Justin Ryan
Anyone who doesn't know the economy is unwell has obviously been off the planet or in a cave for the last nine months. Despite the government's attempt to stop the bleeding, one company after another has collapsed — the latest to join the list is General Motors, a fixture in American automotive culture. GM's situation, which included filing for bankruptcy this week, comes with an additional blow to the company, if not fiscally then to its corporate pride: the company's bankruptcy filing has disqualified it from inclusion in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, an honor it has held for eighty-three years, a record second only to General Electric's 102 years.
GM's loss, however, is technology's gain, as one more staple in the tech lineup will take the automotive giant's place. Cisco Systems, the networking powerhouse that claims as much as a 68% share in certain areas of the networking market, will be added to the venerable index on June 8 — it will become the fifth technology firm in the current lineup, along with Hewlett-Packard, Intel, IBM, and Microsoft. Other members of the index, which includes thirty stocks considered to be a representative sample of the overall market, include such American corporate icons as AT&T, Coca-Cola, the aforementioned General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, McDonalds, Wal-Mart, and Walt Disney.
CEO John Chambers, speaking to reporters at the Cisco Partner Summit, called the inclusion a "tremendous honor" while acknowledging that it comes with "mixed emotions" stemming from the displacement of General Motors — Chambers described GM as a great company, customer, and partner as well as "an icon." Dow chief Robert Thompson proclaimed Cisco a "fitting addition," saying the company's offerings "are vital to an economy and culture still adapting to the Information Age - just as automobiles were essential to America in the 20th Century."
Cisco is one of the largest contributors to the Linux kernel, and just over a year ago announced the opening of the company's Integrated Services Routers to third-party development via Linux-based modules. The company also sponsored a $100,000 competition for ISR developers, which just completed its first phase with the announcement of ten finalists who will now move on to application development, submitting their final products before August 15.
We certainly look forward to seeing the new Cisco servers in action in a Tokyo datacenter sometime soon, and also seeing Cisco add more value to the open source world.
You can read the original article on the Linux Journal website here: Cisco To Join The Dow -- And Will Take Linux With It.
Polycom is another company that is doing well despite the recent economic crisis. Polycom is the leading teleconferencing and videoconferencing specialist, and has seen sales rise by 15.5%. Of course with many companies looking to cut costs, video conferencing and teleconferencing solutions make a lot of sense - the initial capital expenditure is quickly recapped through ongoing travel cost savings. Swine flu is another area that has driven sales of Polycom equipment in the last quarter.
Polycom sees silver lining in downturn
By Winston Chai
The global recession and swine flu have dampened the outlook for most businesses, but for conferencing equipment maker Polycom, they have turned out to be a double boon.
Although the US-led financial crisis weighed down most economies in the second half of 2008, Polycom's full-year sales still rose 15.5 per cent to US$1.1 billion. Its regional revenue surged even more as businesses and governments splashed out on new video-conferencing systems to boost collaboration and cut operating costs.
'We grew around 20 per cent in the Asia-Pacific in 2008,' says the managing director of Polycom's Asia-Pacific operations Hansjoerg Wagner.
'We also expanded our regional headcount significantly last year. We increased our employee base about 25 per cent on the ground.'
The company now employs more than 2,500 workers worldwide, including about 70 at its Asia-Pacific headquarters in Singapore.
According to Mr Wagner, governments and businesses in the region have shown a strong propensity to use video-conferencing in the past few years - and recent events have accelerated the adoption curve.
Polycom, which used to specialize in audio-conferencing equipment for corporate meeting rooms, now derives close to 70 per cent of its sales from video-conferencing systems. The Asia-Pacific currently contributes almost 25 per cent to the company's global video solutions revenue.
Click on the following link to read the rest of the article: Polycom sees silver lining in downturn.
For companies based in Tokyo and Japan, Polycom have a great range of solutions for companies of all sizes - from SOHO all the way up to the enterprise. Denphone is a certified Polycom reseller, and can help your company implement a Polycom solution. Contact us today for a no obligation quote.
Highway Linux
We were pleased to receive a copy of Highway Linux at Mays' VoIP Lounge. This is a new Linux distribution which was built in only 3 days. It is based on the Japanese version of the Puppy Linux distribution and features the use of the GD-HighwayGothicJA-OTF font (more information about the font can be found here: http://www.hogera.com/pcb/font/. This distribution is fast to load and ran fine on an old test box we use here, although it did have problems with my dual monitor set up that required some configuration of xorg.conf.
The font looks nice, and is easy to read. Japanese fonts are one area that has needed work from the linux community for a long while now, and it is good to see thing moving forward in that area.
As far as we are aware, this distribution is not available for download, although we have a copy at the Denphone office if anyone is interested in having a go on this distribution.
Denphone completes preliminary testing of Mitel 5224 Handset
Denphone is pleased to announce that they have successfully completed preliminary testing of the Mitel 5224 VoIP SIP enabled office telephone handset and that the Mitel handset and SIP firmware is compliant with the Denphone range of PBX systems.
Functions tested and found to be working:
- Outbound calls
- Inbound calls
- Blind transfers
- Announced call transfer
- Transfer to mobile phone
- Conferencing
- Conference split (private conference in a conference9
- Voicemail
- Message waiting indicator (MWI)
- Speakerphone
- Call Display
- Hold
- Park
- Cascade
- Call pick-up (Transfer to group)
- Hunt group
- Function key programming
- Headset
- Missed call display
Functions tested and not working:
Japanese display is not available with the Mitel 5224 IP phones. Languages supported include English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese and Dutch.
The sound quality during testing was good - not up to the level of the HD Polycom units, but certainly clear and undistorted. The screen size is quite small, so although it displays missed calls, it is difficult to navigate through those calls compared to phones with a larger LCD display such as the Polycom 601. Using some functions, such as hold, were not as user friendly as possible. For example pressing the button to place someone on hold again causes the call to be dropped rather than picked up; one needs to press a line key button for the call to be moved off hold. The handset was comfortable to use, and easy to pick up.
Denphone is not planning to sell Mitel handsets at this time, preferring to focus on Polycom and Cisco equipment, but we do support Mitel equipment in Japan.
VoIP & Asterisk Lounge June 11th, 2009
The next VoIP & Asterisk Lounge will be held Thursday, June 11th, from 6pm at Cafe Lolita in Azabujuban, Tokyo. This monthly event is a great chance to meet and network with other Asterisk and VoIP users and developers in the Tokyo region.
- Cost: Free Entrance (drinks are between 500 and 900yen, some food is available, but it is non-vegetarian).
- Directions: From Azabujuban Station Exit 7 (Oedo or Namboku Lines),turn right and walk 2 minutes towards Roppongi Hills.
- Alternatively, exit at Roppongi station and walk down the hill towards Azabujuban (10 minute walk). Turn left when you get to Tsutaya. Cafe Lolita is on your left.
We look forward to seeing you there!
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About Denphone
Denphone K.K. is Japan's leading provider of open PC based VOIP Telephone PBX systems. Denphone supplies Digium / Asterisk solutions, Cisco, Polycom, Nortel, snom and Grandstream phone and video systems as well as our own bespoke solutions.
Contact Denphone
Denphone is centrally located in Tokyo's Minato Ward in Azabujuban. We can be contacted by telephone on 03-4550-1405, via this contact page or by reply to the address this magazine was sent from.
Our postal address is: #402 Azabu Nagasaka Bd, 1-4-8 Azabujuban, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0045 Japan.
