Few Japanese read industry White Papers

By Ken Y-N ( April 7, 2008 at 23:04) · Filed under Business, Polls

Have you ever read a White Paper published by the government? graph of japanese statistics An important part of any technical person’s job is, I believe, to keep up with the latest innovations, and one way of doing so is to read White Papers published by companies that describe their advances in research and development. This recent report published on japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into White Papers looks at the habits of Japanese.

Demographics

On the 3rd of April 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel employed in either private or public industry completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 83.6% were male, 10.3% in their twenties, 41.5% in their thirties, 36.1% in their forties, 10.6% in their fifties, and 1.5% in their sixties..

There is the other kind of White Paper, that published by governments as forerunners to drafting of bills or for explanations of policies. I cannot say I have read any for sure, but I may have glanced at one or two, or they may just have been draft bills.

I’ve always wanted to write a White Paper, but as my employer emphasises patents as the key way of disclosing new ideas, this is what I end up producing.

Research results

Q1: Have you ever read a White Paper published by the government? (Sample size=330)

Yes 40.6%

No 51.2%

Don’t know what a White Paper is 8.2%

Q2: Have you ever read on the internet a White Paper published by the IT industry, etc? (Sample size=330)

Yes (to SQ) 5.2%

No 94.8%

Q2SQ: Were these White Papers useful? (Sample size=17)

All were useful 0.0%

Some were useful, some weren’t 94.1%

None were useful 0.0%

Can’t say either way 5.9%