An excellent article that I read in Lokvani. I am just saving it here, I am sure that this article will be lost in the archives. Since my daughter is 6 now and going to the same guru i think it will be useful for her to look at this when she is doing her arangetram.

My Arangetram Experience - Mamtha Raj
Mamtha Raj
09/03/2007

Few words can describe the unique feeling of completing an arangetram. The sweat from my neck dripping, the bruises from my bells throbbing, the beads from the tilted Andal bun on my head jingling, and the adrenaline from reaching my mangalam rushing are only four of the feelings I felt the moment I thanked mother Earth in my namaskaram after completing my arangetram. After seriously training for a particular event for over a year, I could not help but shed a singular tear mixed with sadness and relief at the fact it was over. The arangetram experience involves perseverance, diligence, and focus exhibited from the dancer and support given from her audience. My arangetram experience encompassed just that.

I started learning Bharathanatyam at the age of six from my guru Jothi Raghavan. After over nine years of stylized training, I reached the arangetram preparation stage. This is the point where my arangetram experience began for me. During the many hours of training, I learned a great deal about my Indian heritage and culture, the different musical thalams, and the price of hard work.

As the date of my arangetram drew closer, my knowledge of the different thalams and the challenges of crafting jathis (Pure Nritta paragraphs) grew immensely. After working with my Mridangist for 2 weeks prior to the arangetram, almost all of my jathis and Nritta items were tweaked to fit perfectly in beat with the song. At this point in my arangetram experience, nervousness seemed to flood all parts of my life because of the many small flaws, which I disregarded earlier, with a large percentage of my dances. The different thakadimi’s and thakathakita’s perplexed my brain daily, while my guru and Mridangist patiently explained every change to me. As the dancer, I found fool-proofing my dances as the most stressful part of my arangetram experience.

Next, came the week before arangetram practices with my local musicians and my guru. As the week progressed, the dances became more fluid and I finally had reached the point of sincerely anticipating the arangetram and taking pleasure in dancing my most difficult items. Shortly after, came the Friday before arangetram when my family and friends came to the hall in which I was to perform and decorate. Usually a perfectionist, I am often perturbed by the smallest decorative flaws but on this day, I maintained my cool and only concentrated on my dance.

At last, the sun rose on Saturday morning to awaken me on the day of my arangetram. The weather unusually humid and the temperature unusually hot, I climbed out of bed and immediately set to work on crafting a thank you speech. I raced the clock as I cranked out whatever I could possibly say about my family, friends and teacher to accurately express the gratitude I felt. Three hours before my first dance, I managed to eat yogurt rice in the hope of having enough energy to perform. Then, at the arangetram hall, as my teacher got me ready by first attaching the hair piece and many other head decorations, I started to feel the butterflies in my stomach as the time cunningly eased by. After the make up, hairspray, and costume had been set, my friends painted the red on the tips of my fingers and on my toes. Now, as I waited to pray to God and wear my bells, my dance friends calmed me down before my first dance. Fidgeting with my flowers during the entire slokam on Ganesha sung before the Pushpanjali, I stretched and pumped myself for my once in a lifetime experience, my arangetram. As the music of my Pushpanjali played, I allowed my legs to propel me gracefully onto the stage and I began the best day of my life. On stage, it felt as though I was at just another dance practice with my musicians and guru. My feet stamped at the perfect moments in all my off-beat jathis, I felt my face glow with the happiness that my arangetram finally had arrived. The rest of my arangetram passed with ease except of course for the slight problem of being locked out of my dressing room during the intermission, but all turned out well. Finally, after my dance as Andal and my Mangalam, my arangetram was truly over.

To those dancers who are preparing for your arangetrams, I advise you from experience to enjoy every moment of your arangetram day. Enjoy the pain of having your hair basically pulled out in the process of attaching the rakoodi to your head, enjoy the pain of your bells pounding against your feet, enjoy the standing ovation you will receive at the end of your mangalam, enjoy the many compliments you will receive from people you hardly know, and most of all enjoy the care that your friends and family show you throughout your arangetram experience. Although my arangetram training is over, I will still continue to thank my guru by pursuing my passion for dance for many years to come. After my arangetram experience ended, my career as a full-fledged dancer, before on the horizon, is now my present.

A great site which tells the impact of lead on health.




People, animals, and fish are mainly exposed to lead by breathing and ingesting it in food, water, soil, or dust. Lead accumulates in the blood, bones, muscles, and fat. Infants and young children are especially sensitive to even low levels of lead.
organs: lead damages organs

Damages organs - Lead causes damage to the kidneys, liver, brain and nerves, and other organs. Exposure to lead may also lead to osteoporosis (brittle bone disease) and reproductive disorders.

brain: exposure to lead affects the brain Affects the brain and nerves - Excessive exposure to lead causes seizures, mental retardation, behavioral disorders, memory problems, and mood changes. Low levels of lead damage the brain and nerves in fetuses and young children, resulting in learning deficits and lowered IQ.

blue heart: lead exposure affects the heart and blood Affects the heart and blood - Lead exposure causes high blood pressure and increases heart disease, especially in men. Lead exposure may also lead to anemia, or weak blood.

cow and plant: lead damages animals and plants Affects animals and plants - Wild and domestic animals can ingest lead while grazing. They experience the same kind of effects as people who are exposed to lead. Low concentrations of lead can slow down vegetation growth near industrial facilities.

fish: lead affects fish and other animals in water Affects fish - Lead can enter water systems through runoff and from sewage and industrial waste streams. Elevated levels of lead in the water can cause reproductive damage in some aquatic life and cause blood and neurological changes in fish and other animals that live there.

ok. This is old news, but i have not posted anything for a while. Anyway, now that everyone knows about this, esperance bird deaths occurred due to excessive lead pollution.

The company which is responsible for this: Magellan Metals. Magellan, is owned by Canada-based Ivernia Inc

Now the only way the lead contamination was detected was because of bird deaths.

Now:
what would have happened if this lead contamination was not detected?
What kind of health hazzard does lead contamination pose to ordinary citizen?
Are children especially vulnerable due to lead contamination?
Lead paint toys recall is still clear in our mind, what does this massive scale contamination do to long term residents of esperance?

Too many questions.... its a good topic to continue researching tho!!

Another interesting tidbit regarding the closure of Megellan Metals is that it drove prices for lead supply. The mine`s closure has had a dramatic impact on world supplies of lead and helped drive world prices for the metal to record highs this year.

Three-month London Metal Exchange-traded lead raced to nearly US$3,500 in late July. It currently fetches US$2,940/t. At the start of the year it cost less than US$1,700/t.

Lead poisoning fears grow in Esperance with further bird deaths

By David Weber for PM

Western Australia's Health Department is trying to allay fears that the people of the southern coastal town of Esperance may have been contaminated with lead.

The fears stem from the deaths of thousands of birds in and around the town in September 2006 - with more dead birds found last week.

The Department of Environment has found the cause may be lead poisoning.

Lead concentrate has been shipped out of Esperance Port for about 18 months, and even though lead dust has not been conclusively blamed for the bird deaths, shipments have been suspended.

People in the town are fearing for their children's health.

Now that it has found the likely cause of the deaths, the Department of Environment is testing for lead sources around Esperance.

Many of the dead birds found in recent weeks were around schools. But director of Environmental Health Jim Dodds says that does not mean the schools are the source.

He says it is hard to determine lead poisoning and anyone who is worried should get a referral for a blood test from their doctor.

But Mr Dodds says there is no evidence yet that the human population has had any exposure to lead.

"We've seen the results of some analysis of bloods of people who've been done voluntarily in the community, and none of the numbers that we've seen in that have been very high," he said.

"In fact, some of the ones we've seen have been well below Australian average numbers. And we are quite confident that those ones we've seen are well below that guideline value.

"We've seen a family that was connected, we've seen a couple of others and we've also seen the results of occupational lead exposures in the community."

Mr Dodds says if residents have not had their rainwater tanks tested for lead, they should not use them.

"Whilst they've been over the Australian drinking water guideline values, have actually [have] just been over," he said.

"It's not unusual to see that in rainwater tanks, especially if there's lead plumbing devices connected, as there often are in roof catchments. And we want to have a look to just confirm that's the case there."

Shire president Ian Mickel says the people of Esperance do have concerns.

"Whether it's in people's bodies at the present time in minute amounts or not is not what we're looking for," he said.

"It's free for people to go and have a blood test to themselves and check their own personal health.

"But we want to know if this is in our atmosphere or in our environment, spread across our community. And that's what we need to find out as soon as possible.
CSIRO study

Professor Brian Gulson conducted a CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) study into lead levels in Broken Hill in the 1990s.

He has since carried out further studies in Port Pirie, Mount Isa and Hobart.

Now with the Graduate School of the Environment at Macquarie University, Professor Gulson has been asked to help with the Esperance problem.

He says there are new studies associating high lead levels in blood with anti-social behaviour.

"The most important ones these days that are coming out of the studies - especially that have been carried out in the US - are behavioural problems, and they've actually been associating high blood lead levels with delinquency and even... and crime," he said.

"The biggest concern, or one of the big concerns, is the neurological effects, of course, which can affect the learning… give rise to learning difficulties in children."

Professor Gulson says the bird deaths may be an early warning sign for the people of Esperance.

"The birds may be showing us that they're so-called sentinels. The work at Broken Hill, in fact, the alarm bells were rung in Broken Hill by the vets out there showing that the dogs were dying and then the people suddenly say, 'Oh gosh, if the dogs are dying, then what's happening to our children?'," he said.

"And this business of dogs being sentinels, and maybe the birds are being sentinels, was known back in the days of Pliny - talked about dogs dying with a special rapidity. And so certainly if it affects the birds, there's a very good chance that it affects people.

"The most sensitive people, of course, would be young children, who would be crawling around in the dirt and getting the material on their hands and then putting it in their mouth."
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Lead-related native bird deaths in Esperance.

Western Australia's Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) says its latest tests show that the lead which caused thousands of native bird deaths in Esperance last year has also caused more fatalities in the past week.

Nearly 200 birds have been found dead this month in the south coast town and yesterday the DEC revealed a sample of 10 carcasses containing lead levels up to 10 times higher than a fatal dose.

On Monday the Esperance Port suspended lead shipments while the source of the heavy metal is found.

DEC spokesman Dave Mell says they have started to collect native flowers to assess whether the birds are ingesting the lead.

He says the location of the bodies when they were found is unlikely to help ascertain the source of the poisoning.

"It's possible they're feeding away from the zone, coming into an area to roost and then dying while they're roosting. That's one possibility," Mr Mell said.

"The other possibility is that they're suffering from an acute poisoning event and t

25 Start-ups to watch for (from CNN) 2/22/2007

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Nice video about India.

The Department of Environment's Nature Protection Branch Manager, David Mell.

DAVID MELL: We've tested a range of toxins, which primarily are heavy metals and pesticides. There are a number of figures in there that are intriguing in terms of their levels. But what we don't know is whether those levels are normal for birds in that vicinity.

DAVID WEBER: There was a suggestion earlier that the deaths could have been caused by heavy metal contamination.

Can that now be ruled out?

DAVID MELL: It can't be entirely at this point in time, no.

DAVID WEBER: What about contamination into the food chain from algal blooms?

DAVID MELL: Yes, there's no evidence to suggest that algal blooms are, or similar events like botulism, have had an impact. You would expect to see an impact on waterfowl. That hasn't been the case. The principal group of birds that have been affected are birds that feed on nectar, but they also feed on insects.

DAVID WEBER: And those kinds of birds have been returning to Esperance in numbers.

DAVID MELL: Those kinds of birds, my understanding, have begun returning, so things like New Holland honeyeaters, silvereyes, red wattle birds and mynas, which are the birds that were mostly affected appear to be starting to move back into the area.

DAVID WEBER: The Department of Environment will collect more birds from around the Esperance area, and take samples.

It will compare them with those taken from the birds that died in December. It's hoped that this will determine what is a safe level of toxicity.

David Mell says he's never seen an event like this before. He says the deaths of about 200 tree martins in the wheatbelt town of Narembeen last month was also surprising.

But Mr Mell says the Department has ruled out any link.

DAVID MELL: What we've been able to do, we have an understanding of the biology of that particular species, and the coincidence of the sudden weather change is likely to be the cause of death of those birds and we're confident that the incident in Narembeen is not related to the Esperance incident.

DAVID WEBER: The deaths of the birds in Esperance came some time before the weather changed, because it preceded the cyclone by some several weeks.

DAVID MELL: That's right. So what we're saying is that the weather change, that is not one of the factors we are considering in terms of the bird deaths at Esperance and consequently we've also ruled out diseases - bird flu, a range of things. Histopathologies showed no evidence of viral or bacterial infections and so the area that we're focusing on at the moment is toxins.

DAVID WEBER: How confident are you that a cause will be able to be determined?

DAVID MELL: That's not possible for me to answer at this point in time because of the range of variables that are persistent at the moment.

ELEANOR HALL: That's the Western Australian Department of Environment's David Mell speaking to David Weber in Perth.

What is happening to the birds in Australia?
Chronology
Here is an article from bmiers.blogspot.com

PerthNow - Jan 9

Something very curious started happening in a coastal Australian town called Esperance, birds began falling dead from the sky in early December 2006. By January 9th Esperance residents reported five thousand dead birds. So many birds were dead that Esperance was declared a natural disaster zone. The dying didn't stop until there were no more birds left to die.

The birds were dying around water sources, where they flew to quench an insatiable thirst. Investigators found that the dead birds had empty stomachs. People witnessed birds convulsing before they finally succumbed to their death. What was causing this?

PerthNow - Jan 10

Investigators raced to find the cause. First they ruled out infectious disease and bacterial infection, and they turned their attention to toxins, and the nearby swamp. People began to speculate that perhaps the birds were deliberately poisoned , or maybe a dry winter was the cause. Most of the dead birds were insect and nectar eaters. The birds internal organs were decaying quickly after death, authorities needed freshly dead birds to autopsy. The problem was that there were no birds left. Finally a wattle-bird, in the throes of death was handed over to authorities, they would be able to freeze the remains and preserve the bird for autopsy.

Melbourne Indymedia - Jan 14

Authorities believe the most likely cause is toxic poisoning. The question remains, what toxin? Pesticides? Authorities are awaiting the autopsy results.

The Daily Telegraph - Jan 16

Two hundred dead swallows were found in Narembeen, 380 kilometers from Esperance.

news.com.au - Jan 17

The birds in Narembeen were determined to be treemartins, similar to swallows. The birds actually died two weeks ago, making it difficult for authorities to determine what caused their deaths. Test results on the Esperance birds are due back early next week.

Esperance bird mystery deepens

Amanda O'Brien

February 02, 2007 06:00am

Article from: AAP

WILDLIFE officials will kill 15 healthy birds in a bid to discover why thousands of native birds dropped dead from the sky at Esperance, on WA's south coast.

While some birds are returning to the area almost two months after the mysterious deaths sparked worldwide scientific attention, authorities are no closer to knowing what caused the phenomenon.

The 15 healthy birds will be shot or trapped under special licence to provide a "control" sample to check background levels of toxins. These will be compared to levels in the birds that died.

Bird deaths baffle experts


This story is from The Sunday Times
Bird deaths baffle experts
January 21, 2007
SCIENTISTS are yet to determine what is responsible for killing more than 4000 birds in Esperance.
The Department of Agriculture is continuing tests for evidence of poisoning from pesticides or toxins, which has emerged as the most likely cause of the deaths.
The Department of Environment and Conservation estimates 4000 native nectar eating birds have died in Esperance, 730km south-east of Perth, since early in December.
In some areas, entire populations of wattle birds, honeyeaters and miners have disappeared. Autopsies have ruled out bacterial or viral infections as the cause of the deaths.
A DEC spokesman said results of the latest tests should be available later this week.

Bird Deaths in Esperance: Update

200 More birds have been found dead 240 km east of perth and 380 km from esperance. There has been reports that these deaths are as a result of a chemical spill, industrial poison or a naturally occuring posion. There has been no conclusive evidence and it still baffles authorities.

Hilarious Post. Wife catches Indian Man cheating live on radio.
This is a must listen

http://www.betterloverseminar.com/desi_wife_catches_husband

Thousands of Birds fall from the sky in australia.
This happened in remote southwestern Australia. Esperance, Western Australia,

Also,

Earlier this week, authorities discovered 63 dead birds in a section of downtown Austin, Texas, and temporarily shut down the area. Officials are awaiting lab results to determine the cause of the deaths.

Its important to keep track of these trends and find out what exactly happened. I will do a search on these stories again in a week and post what the root cause is for this?

Found a new CD sharing website www.lala.com
List the CD's you have, list the CD's you want and you pay $1 to start trading CD's.
Not a bad idea but who is collecting CD's anymore.
Everything is MP3's or itunes.
So, even tho the idea is novel it might not be a great idea. Why not do the same thing and share mp3's that you bought. Oh, then you need a self destruction mechanism ha ha ha

Fred Wilson

Managing Partner, Union Square Ventures

Build a Blog That Builds Your Business

Blogging has become a critical piece of my business. I am an early-stage investor in Internet-delivered services and the co-founder of a venture firm. At first I really didn't know what to write about. So I wrote about things I was passionate about: work, family, music, politics, New York City. I still post about all of those things, but today my blog, called A VC, is mostly about my work and music. I started writing at least one post every day and have done that ever since. When I go on vacation, I write a bunch of posts in advance and then autopost them on a regular schedule. I've found that having something new on the blog every day is the single most important thing to building an audience.

I also like to use a sensational headline. Many people read blogs in aggregators, which generally show only the headline. So you have to give people a reason to click through. Blogs need to be real and personal. Reading it should be like hanging out with you. I play music for my readers. I show them videos I like. I tell them what I did over the weekend. And I tell them what is happening in the technology, Internet, and VC markets.

And it works. About 50,000 people come to my blog every month. The site brings in about $30,000 a year now in ad revenue, and I donate it all to charity. Most important, I'm getting to know entrepreneurs of all kinds - in India, Australia, England, China, and Silicon Valley. They read my blog, correct me when I'm wrong, pound the table when they agree with me. I get to know them, and they get to know me. When it comes time for them to raise money, they know who to ask. And for me, the blog acts as an amplifier and a filter. I see many more opportunities, but they are also way more relevant. It makes me a better investor.

Stewart Butterfield

Co-founder, Flickr

It Has to Be About More Than Just Money

One of the biggest lessons I've learned is that there has got to be a reason for what you're doing. You actually have to care about what you're doing. The business has to be about something. Whatever the point of it is does not have to be inconsistent with making money, but usually if that's the sole reason, it is not very successful. Because you have to have confident employees, happy customers, and reliable suppliers to run a company as much as profits. I am still here to win. All the people on the Flickr team are committed to what we're doing, which is to be the eyes of the world. Otherwise, I would say fuck it, go back to the beach, and get in shape.

Joe Kraus

Co-founder and CEO, JotSpot

Get Bought by Google

I would say don't try. Trying to be acquisition bait is the surest way of not being acquired. If you try to build a company that is fully independent and has a successful business model, that is the way to increase your chances of being acquired. If you don't have options, buyers know it. I say that generically. You have to create options for yourself as an entrepreneur, and the way you create options is to create a stand-alone company.

Ram Shriram

Silicon Valley entrepreneur; Director, Google

Give Your Startup a Fighting Chance

1. Hire smart. Setting the DNA of a company starts with the founders, and hiring is the No. 1 pitfall for young ventures. Don't compromise on quality, verify passion, stay focused on doing one thing really well. The motivation should be to build something of value for the long term.

2. Define the market problem. Rather than rush to form a venture, think hard about the problem you're solving. Break it down into easily understandable pieces so you can explain it first to yourself.

3. Simplify the solution. Set specific goals and milestones to get you to a stage of validation; that ensures that your efforts and energies will be well spent. At that point, be flexible and open to changes. It's better to have half a product with a brutal triage of features at launch than to have a half-assed product.

Marc Benioff

Chairman and CEO, Salesforce.com

Be an Industry Disruptor

My four rules are: Build a great product, build demand in any way you can, make sure you have a distribution organization to fulfill the demand, and make sure your customers are happy - and that is the first rule, by the way. Those are the four elements. Is your product better than anyone else's - is it easier, more efficient, simpler? Can you explain to people how it's better? Can you position it correctly in their minds? That's what you're talking about - consciousness. When you talk about disruption, a market is just a group of people. Can you sell it, distribute it, get people to try it? Can you get it adopted? Then if you get that customer satisfaction, it starts all over again.

Craig Newmark

Founder and Chairman, Craigslist

Trust Your Customers and They'll Love You in Return

As part of my job, I put in at least 40 hours a week on customer service. I'm just a customer service rep. My two biggest projects are dealing with misbehaving apartment brokers in New York and lightly moderating our discussion boards.

We are a very open, very democratic site, which means we get all sorts of people. We do get some bad guys who are a few fries short of a Happy Meal. So we have to enlist the aid of our community to help us. The lesson implicit in this is that people will help you out and behave in a really good way. If you trust them, they will respond to that trust.

American corporate culture seems to devalue customer service in a big way. I say, go the other way. Do it right. Trust your customers. Give them power to do things right. Service costs will drop, and customers will become more devoted to your products and services. This ain't rocket science.

Reed Hastings

Co-founder and CEO, Netflix

Turn Your Biggest Weakness Into Your Greatest Asset

Truly brilliant marketing happens when you take something most people think of as a weakness and reposition it so people think of it as a strength. In the 1990s, Apple Computer was selling an Intel board that ran in a Mac to make it PC-compatible. It didn't work. Steve Jobs took that weakness - incompatibility - and with the "Think Different" campaign turned it into a statement of style. And under the covers, Apple kept improving it. With Netflix, the big weakness is that it takes a day to get your movie. If we talked about that, that would be ineffective. So what we talk about is no late fees, no due dates, and being aggressive on price. You focus their attention on features that are compelling, like allowing people to keep movies as long as they want. Most people always try to fix the product, which is a good thing. But brilliant marketing is taking the product you have and figuring out the right positioning.

Sergey Brin

Co-founder, Google

Succeed With Simplicity

Simplicity is an important trend we are focused on. Technology has this way of becoming overly complex, but simplicity was one of the reasons that people gravitated to Google initially. This complexity is an issue that has to be solved for online technologies, for devices, for computers, and it's very difficult. Success will come from simplicity. Look at Apple, the success they have had, and what they are doing.

We are focused on features, not products. We eliminated future products that would have made the complexity problem worse. We don't want to have 20 different products that work in 20 different ways. I was getting lost at our site keeping track of everything. I would rather have a smaller set of products that have a shared set of features.

Eric Schmidt

CEO, Google

SUCCEED WITH SIMPLICITY

Silicon Valley companies have a tendency to develop these systems that rely on complexity. But it produces things like the personal computer running Windows. Google from the beginning focused on the simple search box, the simple search page.

We have the tiger by the tail in that we have this huge phenomenon of personalization. Now we need to make it simpler for people. We are trying to shape the innovation going forward from here and get things more integrated, make Google more integrated. This is a big change in the way we run the company. In the past the philosophy has been "get this done, get it built, and get it out." But continuing that, we would end up with hundreds of products named X-Google, and people can only remember five products.

Kevin Rose

Founder, Digg

Let the Users Run the Show

Letting users control your site can be terrifying at first. From day one we were asking ourselves, "What is going to be on the front page today?" You have no idea what the system will produce. But stepping back and giving consumers control is what brought more and more people to the site. They have a sense of ownership and discovery at the same time. If you give users the tools to spread and share their interests with others, they will use them to promote what is important to them.

We have 17 employees, and we have 4,500 submitted stories a day. We could hire more staff, but that's not what the site is about. It's about allowing users to define the site and police the site themselves.

Chad Hurley

Co-founder, YouTube

Give Your Startup a Fighting Chance

1. Test first. Launch your product or service before you have funding. See how people respond to it before you have a PowerPoint and business plan - have something people can use, and go from there.

2. Seek outside feedback. As you start building the product, don't assume that you know all the answers. Listen to the community and adapt. We had a lot of our own ideas about how the service would evolve. Coming from PayPal and eBay, we saw YouTube as a powerful way to add video to auctions, but we didn't see anyone using our product that way, so we didn't add features to support it.

3. Give partners what they want. Approach your business partners with concepts that they can get their heads around, and try to respond to their needs. An interesting example is what we've done with the music labels. With Warner and others, we saw an opportunity to protect the labels' rights and create a new market. Now we can do things like add music to people's travel videos. It allows users the freedom to create and to do it legally.

Japanese-Style-Management. Has It Survived? Will It Survive?

		Speaker: Ronald DORE Visiting Fellow, RIETI see other activities by this Fellow Moderator: TANABE Yasuo Vice-President, RIETI see other activities by this Fellow Handouts [PDF:369KB] Transcript As today's title is "Japanese management system. Has it survived? Will it survive?" let me start by explaining what I understand as the particular characteristics of the Japanese management system. First of all, the nature of the firm is in Japan much more like a community than in other countries. The Financial Times introduced a distinction between "property" firms and "entity" firms. Property firms are treated as the property of the shareholders, but in entity firms, there is some sense of being like a school, university, or public institution which continues through time and has a reputation of its own, irrespective of the people who are, at any one time, working in it. This is very clearly a Japanese characteristic. In practice, this has meant the three great pillars of the Japanese industrial relations system: lifetime employment; the seniority wage and promotion system; and enterprise-based unions. Lifetime employment meant that the people running the firms were nearly always people who had spent their whole working lives within the firm. This meant that the seniority wage system, now spoken of as a bad kind of egalitarianism, was actually a system of promotion according to both seniority and performance merit. This system kept wage differences between peers of the same age limited to a span of about 20% around the average wage. Nevertheless, it did differentiate according to performance, and who got on the board or became president was a matter of intense rivalry. But it was a rivalry which was played out by showing how well you could cooperate with others. This was one characteristic of Japanese top management system. It had the consequence of orienting management decisions to the long term. People were conscious of the fact that they were trustees of a firm that had a long history, and would have a glorious future. In highly fluid labor market situations, unions have as their main objective keeping wages up, but that kind of union has hardly ever existed since the Taisho era. Instead, what the unions do is to unite all the people who have the same employer, and are committed to that employer. The second characteristic is called relational trading, which includes having long-term suppliers with whom you have a long-standing relationship, and whom you do not change except under extreme provocation. In a truly market system, a firm shops around each year for a supplier with the best quality and the cheapest price, and it will switch suppliers depending on the market. The long-term stability of supplier relations and also long-term stability in the relationship between industrial firms and their bankers, or relational banking - although more of a German characteristic - also fits into this general pattern of relational trading. The third characteristic is that the balance between competition and cooperation is shifted more toward cooperation than in most industrial societies. There are quite strong industrial associations and tacit or explicit agreements among market competitors to limit the kinds of competition in which they indulge. So, while in the UK Rupert Murdoch cut the price of his newspapers to increase circulation, in Japan there is a hierarchy of prices, and there is a tacit agreement that, although newspapers companies compete in advertising and sales, they do not compete on price. That sort of limitation of competition in favor of cooperation is a form of cartelization which American antitrust would come down on. The fourth characteristic is that the role of the bureaucrat has traditionally been very important, not only as a promoter of the growth through indicative planning, but also as a promoter of a particular pattern of egalitarian growth. That is to say, to make sure that the small and medium enterprises also had the ability to grow and to protect themselves from the large corporations. Thus, the bureaucracy played the role of promoter of egalitarian growth and also arbitrator between industrial and consumer interests. For example, the oil refining industry was regulated for 10 years by an unwritten agreement brokered by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), whereby the prices of gasoline and heating oil were kept at a ratio not normally produced by market forces. This was done in the interest of poor people's home heating, as opposed to the car-owners' desire for cheap gasoline. The fact that most of the poor people were voting for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and that there were more of them than those who were interested in gasoline may also have had something to do it, but it was seen to be a decision in the public interest. This tacit agreement was then broken and replaced by a law. One can call this "relational regulation" because it was a way in which long-standing relationships between industry associations and bureaucrats were used to promote the public interest. Why the urge to change? In the 1990s, the main features were economic stagnation after the bursting of the bubble and the need for many firms to reduce output. Firms had a lot of spare capacity including workers who they did not need, but who, under the lifetime employment system, they were unable to sack There were many people urging the restructuring of companies and rethinking the lifetime employment system. Second was the push for deregulation, which was partly ideologically driven: the growth of neoliberal thinking stressing the importance of unleashing market forces and price competition. The deregulation drive has been an important factor in changing the system. The banking crisis since 1997 has accelerated the tendency to break up the mutual crossholdings of shares, which was one of the main reasons why Japanese firms were employee-sovereignty companies that looked after their employees rather than shareholders. This was possible not just because of the mutual crossholdings between industrial companies and between banks and industrial companies. The banks were in severe trouble because of the bad loan crisis, and were forced to cash in a lot of their holdings, which reduced the incidence of crossholdings. The penetration of U.S. business culture has been quite considerable over the last 10 years. One of the main reasons is the flow of people who have had an MBA training or graduate school economics in the United States. This cohort has grown larger and they are beginning to be important middle-management influences on firms' behavior. Many of the people who have had this kind of training have accepted the assumption that the Anglo-Saxon way of running companies and markets is the normal way, and that the Japanese form is somehow a deviation from normality. That ideological influence from the United States was amplified by what happened in the second half of the 1990s when the Japanese economy was stagnating, the American economy was bouncing along with tremendous vigor and confidence, and Japan was losing market share in some technological fields. That loss of national confidence was important and the idea that 'America has it better' was focused on two things: one was transparency - Japanese firms were secretive; the other was the success of venture businesses. Silicon Valley was the symbol of entrepreneurial vitality, but the venture capital industry was just not taking off in Japan. Of course both of these salient characteristics of America have suffered a blow with the fall in the NASDAQ and the dispersal of Silicon Valley, while Enron and WorldCom have destroyed the myth of the total transparency of the American company. So there has been a change in atmosphere, especially with the nascent economic recovery of Japan. But the notion that America is better is slowly changing. There is another reason why people thought there ought to be change, which was a collection of scandals known as Fushoji. Hugh Patrick, the economist at Columbia University, said that in America, employees steal from the firm, but in Japan employees steal for the firm. That sums up all the scandals about payoffs to gangsters, which were done in the interest of the firm. However, the number of instances of people actually stealing from the firm has not been large. Nevertheless, it was a powerful argument for those who said Japan must change. What sort of changes have taken place? The lifetime employment system has survived to a remarkable degree. It is certainly true that there is much more mobility of young people. But if you look at the general wage survey, which gives a breakdown of workforces by the number of years of service, the proportion of people between the ages of 30 and 34 who have been working for that company for less than one year was 4% in 1985, rose to 5% in 1990, but was back to 3% in 2002. The labor mobility among people in their early 30s is still very restricted. If you take only university graduates, each of these figures is 1% lower. If you look at the wages of those people who have been working for less than one year as compared with the average wages for people in that age group, the only industry in which they are slightly higher is financial services, where the movement is only 1% But they are people who are moving up by changing firms, which is still quite rare. In the deliberations in the changes of the labor standards laws, a lot of people wanted to change by statute what had been established by legal precedent as obstacles to the unrestricted dismissal of workers. A lot of legal precedents really protect jobs, so it is not simply a convention to maintain the lifetime employment system - it is also the legal system. A lot of people on the Labor Standards Committee argued that these protections should be abolished because everybody else is going for labor market flexibility and so on. But they were prevented, not so much by the trade union representatives who are very weak, but by paternalistic managers, the older generation of managers and bureaucrats. It was a touch-and-go system and I expect that the next time around it will really change. But it was an indication of the strength of the lifetime employment tradition. Two things, however, have changed. One is the introduction in the majority of the firms of some kind of performance pay, replacing the seniority-constrained merit promotion. However, it is not clear how this will end up. Many firms that introduced the system in the mid-1990s have backtracked because the administration costs and effects on morale of objectively measuring differences in performance were counterproductive in terms of productivity. So there has been this change not only in the management philosophy, but also among the people being managed. Changes in corporate governance include the possibility of shareholders bringing suits against directors. There has been an enormous change in the options for the financial restructuring of companies: making holding companies, permitting companies to buy back their own shares, allowing the use of shares for takeovers and mergers, et cetera. These liberalizations have in fact increased managerial power rather than shareholder power. But, in order to increase shareholder power, there have also been changes in the introduction of outside directors, slimming of boards of directors and the creation of a second level of executive directors in an attempt to separate the executive and monitoring functions. However these efforts have been quite limited, and have made little dent, either on managerial autonomy, or on the tendency for firms to promote from inside. In one survey of 32 firms, we found that the average age at which the president was appointed was 52.4 in 1993 and 52.7 in 2003. There has been almost no change in the pattern of promotion to top posts within Japanese firms over the last decade. One important change in industrial relations is the weakening of trade unions, which has come from all the changes that have led to the collapse of the Socialist Party. Another very important factor is the process of education selection. Many who led trade unions in the 1950s and 1960s were men of high intelligence with considerable charisma, who were exceedingly bright but who were too poor to go to university. The enormous increase in educational opportunity has meant that people of that caliber no longer get onto the shop floor and are no longer available to the trade unions. The other influence is the deflation of the last eight years, which has practically wiped out the process of collective bargaining, and the major starting point and justification, the compensation for inflation. With deflation, real wages were rising although nominal wages were stagnant, and there was no justification for the process of collective bargaining to continue. So these are the changes in the firm. A much bigger change is the centrality the of stock market and its effect on managerial objectives. The stock exchange used to be thought of as a place for unsavory speculators, and stock prices were thought to be moved by security companies' manipulation. So nobody took a move in their firm's share price as a genuinely, morally important comment on performance. One of the major reasons for this change is that 20% of Japanese shares are now owned by American investors, mostly by relatively stable institutional investors, but also by a lot mutual funds and hedge funds, which do a lot of the trading. In many months, 50% of the trades on the Tokyo stock market are done by foreigners, who have become the price-makers. The analyst profession has grown which means that managers are much more concerned to keep up their company's share price than they used to be. That has had a considerable effect in eroding the community-like character of Japanese firms. To summarize, in the community view of the firm, the shareholders were just one of the groups the firm needed to keep happy in order to survive. But, in the property view of the firm, the chief relationship is between the shareholders and the managers, which is an agency relationship. Such firms have to get the best deal out of their suppliers, banks, and employees. So employees are treated so as to get the best quality out of their employees at the lowest price. The "Toyota Way," is like the property view: there are delegations between shareholders and managers, while employees are just another group like suppliers or banks. There is enormous importance of shareholders, customer service and harmonious growth, which lead to stable long-term growth and maximize shareholder value. This is a great change from the past. The industrial relations manager believed that although the union had not seen this plan yet, they would not complain. Previously, not much thought was given to shareholders, but now, with more shareholders taking their profits and with a large number of Toyota shares on the market, there are considerable problems for departments dealing with equity capital. Also more shareholders speak up. However, this presentation was for investors, and it seems that they are saying, "Although this is what we say, we still believe in treating our employees as we used to." However, I am not convinced that the next generation will have the same view. They are more likely to have a lesser gap between tatemae (the facade) and honne (the truth). This is because there will be further changes in corporate governance. The next reform of company law will make it possible for foreign firms to take over Japanese firms through the offer of shares. Last week the manager of Mitsui Sumitomo Bank said that if UFJ does not accept the current offer, they might look at a hostile takeover. Ten years ago that would have been a huge break with tradition, but now it is accepted as reasonable and something that may happen. Secondly, the changes in the labor law that did not happen the last time will happen within the next 10 years. There will be a change in the protection of job security. Continuing changes in the education system, which have led to a weakening of trade union leadership and a concentration of talent in managers, has also had the consequence of a change in class structure. Many retiring managers, now in their 70s, went to village schools or public schools, and rubbed shoulders with the people on the shop floor before university. Many came from large families, with brothers and sisters in humble occupations. This gave the managerial class roots in the lower reaches of Japanese society, which contributed enormously to the sense of community within Japanese firms. However, managers, who are now in their 30s, have been on an elite track from the age of 11 and have none of the cross-class sense of rapport of earlier generations. Then there is also the changing distribution of financial assets. More people in the managerial class have inherited wealth or savings of their own, whereas previous managers' income came almost entirely from their salaries. Income from financial assets is increasingly important for the people running the Japanese industry and state.

So what is this "Toyota Way"

1. Base your management decisions on a long-term philosophy, even at the expense of short-term goals.
2. Create continuous process flow to bring problems to the surface.
3. Use "pull" systems to avoid overproduction.
4. Level out the workload (heijunka). (Work like the tortoise, not the hare.)
5. Build a culture of stopping to fix problems, to get quality right the first time.
6. Standardized tasks are the foundation for continuous improvement and employee empowerment.
7. Use visual control so that no problems are hidden.
8. Use only reliable, thoroughly tested technology that serves your people and processes.
9. Grow leaders who thoroughly understand the work, live the philosophy and teach it to others.
10. Develop exceptional people and teams who follow your company's philosophies.
11. Respect your extended network of partners and suppliers by challenging them and helping them to improve.
12. Go and see for yourself to thoroughly understand the situation (genchi genbutsu).
13. Make decisions slowly by consensus, thoroughly considering all options; implement decisions rapidly.
14. Become a learning organization through relentless reflection (hansei) and continuous improvement (kaizen).

Toyota’s Sales Projections Show It Surpassing G.M.

Toyota’s rise would also prove a victory of sorts for its unique corporate culture, the so-called Toyota Way, which is rooted in an obsession with craftsmanship and constant improvement, or “kaizen.” Analysts said the Toyota Way would likely become enshrined as the industry’s gold standard, and the model to mimic or surpass for new challengers from South Korea and China.

“This proves that the Toyota Way is more than just an odd, quirky theory,” said Chester Dawson, author of “Lexus: the Relentless Pursuit.”

“Being No. 1 means Toyota now sets the standards that everyone has to beat,” he said.

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