Global Voices Online

After “Web Shinkaron” was published, I was told by many editors: “You created a category, didn't you?” Certainly, books about the web which offer an explanation about technology, even just as new paperbacks [shinsho], get published in large numbers. However, the web is already flooded with information of that kind, so for me, my job was done when I created a new category.

As well, there has not yet been an event which would demand changes in the framework presented in “Web Shinkaron” since [it was published]. YouTube and Facebook are both embedded in the same framework. I think it would anyway be better if, when another major change arrives, people much younger than me write the “definitive edition”.

From 2003, for nearly two years, I wrote a blog at a site called CNET. I was asked by the editor in charge over there, in his 20s at the time, to handle writing, interspersed with the theme of what was happening on the web, commentary about careers suited for young people. I did this, I got a good response, and I wrote many articles.

Also, I founded an NPO called JTPA [Japan Technology Professionals Association], and every year I am involved in a “Silicon Valley Tour” to which about 20 young people under the age of 30 are invited. Although the participants are incredibly talented kids, they don't hold solid hopes about the future. While talking, I quoted the words of [Steve] Jobs, CEO of Apple, and said: “Silicon Valley is just a bunch of people doing what they like to do. Just do what you believe in, do what you like.” [I said that] and there was one kid who started to cry. It was the first time anybody had ever said that to them. There was another student there who declared: “I'm going to study at Stanford!”

Although [these kids] have lived for more than 20 years, and must have also had discussions with their parents and teachers, I still have to wonder, what is Japan's education system doing? Is it earnestly confronting young people? For these young people as well, I felt that I had to write this book.

The phenomenon at its foundation is the creation of a giant archive of knowledge and information. This is what I call “another Earth”. This is not simply something like a library, it is connected to the flesh and blood of human beings, and it is continuously updated with daily information. It is an era in which one has the power to access, anytime, every single piece of information about individuals from across the world.

In the web era, if you want to study, in every respect you can keep studying without end. It is an era of growing difference between the people who master the web, who think of it as something that overcomes the limitations of the [human] brain, as an amplifier for [human] ability, and those who do not.

Although, by making use of the web in a practical way and following your own intentionality, you can proceed in your studies as if you were driving on the highway, still as a result of globalisation, there is a huge traffic jam coming up in the road ahead. The idyllic age during which the word “global” indicated only Japan, United States and Europe is gone; the age is now one in which we are joined by many competitors from India and China, so climbing the highly-specialized “high, steep path” will involve real difficulties. Nevertheless, in order to harness your intentionality, there is no choice other than to follow the life of the “animal trail”, competing with the coordinated power of all human beings. In this book, I present a “role model thinking method” as a hint for doing this. One way or another, in free competition, finding your own intentionality becomes very important. Because it becomes a competition of how much one can immerse oneself in the subject, of how industrious one can be.

If I look at myself, and also at the friends around me, we are working overwhelmingly more than we were ten years ago. The reason is that the work is information processing, so as information technology advances, because of globalisation, not only has the amount of information exploded, but the work can also be done anytime, anywhere.

Matsumoto Yukihiro, developer of the programming language Ruby, says that mails arrive from overseas even while he is sleeping, so that when he opens his eyes in the morning, 200 mails have collected overnight. What he said, intently, was: “Don't work doing things you don't like to do. You'll become sick.” I felt strongly that, even while thinking of survival, you have to work doing things that you like.

On the other hand, large corporations are increasingly becoming organizations within which the individual cannot choose their work. In BRICs [Brazil, Russia, India, China] including China, in Africa, and so on, in countries where physical strength is demanded, besides having suddenly been forced to take a new post, businesses have suddenly had to shrink, companies have merged, and crises are rapidly increasing. In order to work at a large corporation, it is increasingly necessary to have “the skill to tackle with pleasure the task you are given”. I also was once working in a large corporation without having a special quality, but nowadays that's completely impossible. (LOL)

Where will the working style of the web era end up? There is no answer in this book either. What I can say is that, in order to survive in this difficult age, there seems to me nothing you can do but what matches your intentionality. I am often criticized for being overly optimistic, but in terms of awareness of the issues, it's not optimism at all. If you read the book carefully, I think you will understand this.