世論 What Japan Thinks

With the rather amusingly-name “My Bag” campaign to persuade Japanese consumers to start bringing their own shopping bag with them gathering steam, MyVoice recently published the results of a survey they conducted into the reuse of check-out bags. This is quite a timely survey, with the big convenience store chain 7-11 recently announcing that it would start charging 5 yen per bag at all its stores.

Demographics

Over the first five days of May 2007, 15,078 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 46% of the sample was male, 1% in their teens, 17% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 28% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties.

This is a subject I’ve looked at before, but this survey takes an interesting look at what exactly people do with the bags once they get home. Sadly, Q2 and Q3 were badly-worded, lumping two questions together; I would have rather seen the two parts asked individually.
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MyVoice recently published a survey looking at the topic of disposable dry-cell batteries. By disposable, I mean the single use type, not rechargeable batteries. The survey covers not just standard cylindrical batteries, but also button-type batteries.

Demographics

Over the first five days of May 2007 MyVoice surveyed 15,010 members of their internet community. 54% were female, 2% in their teens, 18% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 27% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties.

I buy standard batteries less than once a year in packs of 20 from a home centre on the whole, although I have occasionally used an electrical superstore too. My brand is almost always Panasonic. Just about the only non-rechargeale battery-powered implements at home that use more than one battery per year are a couple of bug killers and a pair of electric candles.
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MyVoice recently published the results of a survey they conducted on the topic of convenience store multimedia terminals. This is apparently the fourth time they have conducted this survey, although the results of previous surveys are not mentioned.

Demographics

Between the 1st and 5th of May 2007 14,945 members of MyVoice’s internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 17% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 28% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties.

I’ve used these terminals about once every six months or so, exclusively for completing the purchase of tickets ordered by phone. Perhaps to save on delivery costs, when booking concert tickets by phone the most popular payment option seems to be via these terminals. You get a four-digit code over the phone, you go to the machine, type in your code and your home telephone number, the machine prints out a confirmation order form that you take to the counter, where the staff take your cash and print out your desired tickets.
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japan.internet.com reported on another small but interesting survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into the use of office suites. this survey is timely with Nihon University recently announcing that from April 1st this year they would be using Google Apps, and Ashisuto have announced they are moving from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice.org.

Demographics

On the 17th of May 2007, 330 members of JR Tokai Express Research’s online monitor pool completed an internet-based private survey. All were employed in public or private industry, 73.6% were male, 13.3% in their twenties, 40.3% in their thirties, 34.2% in their forties, 9.7% in their fifties, and 2.4% in their sixties.

This result is not particularly surprising, given that other surveys have shown a virtual monopoly by Microsoft in the workplace for browsers and operating systems.

I personally haven’t used either OpenOffice.org or Google Apps, and work has corporate licences for Microsoft Office, and given the rather heavy reliance on PowerPoint (if I were in management here, I’d ban it) in particular, I cannot see any prospect of change. Interestingly, perhaps, a couple of months ago we gathered together money-saving tips, but no-one suggested using open source office applications to save on licensing. However, given that all other departments would be using Office, without 100% compatability we couldn’t change. In addition, many macro-filled Excel spreadsheets are used within the company, so I suspect they would not be usable in other spreadsheet tools.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into the matter of corporate blogs. This can be considered as a follow-up to the survey published yesterday on company-internal blogs and SNS.

Demographics

On the 17th of May 2007 JR Tokai Express Research gathered responses from 330 members of its online monitor group employed in private industry. 76.4% of the sample was male, 10.3% in their twenties, 40.6% in their thirties, 37.6% in their forties, 9.1% in their fifties, and 2.4% in their sixties.

My employer has neither a corporate blog nor a president’s blog. We get once a month press release-like messages from the prez, and at one time our division manager tried starting an internal blog, but the plan died horribly. I think people expressing opinions was the main issue that stifled any progress.
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japan.internet.com recently published a summary of a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research on the topic of company internal blogs and Social Networking Services (SNS).

Demographics

330 members of JR Tokai Express Research’s online monitor group in salaried employment successfully completed a private internet-based survey between the 8th and 10th of May 2007. 69.7% of the group was male, 18.2% in their twenties, 44.8% in their thirties, 24.8% in their forties, 8.8% in their fifties, and 3.3% in their sixties.

I always find it difficult to comment on these sorts of surveys as I fear I might stray too far into criticism of my employer, so I’ll not bore you with my experiences with groupware activities at my place of work.

There will be a significant difference, I think, between the availability figures in Q1 and the actual usage figures by either the respondent or others at the company, but sadly that is not reported.

For reference, I previously translated goo Research’s more detailed look at company internal communication issues.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into personel systems, in particular in this report, in how salaries are calculated.

Demographics

On the 30th of April 2007 JR Tokai Express Research questioned 330 members of their online monitor panel employed in either private or public enterprises. 67.3% were female, 15.2% in their twenties, 42.1% in their thirties, 31.2% in their forties, 9.4% in their fifties, and 2.1% in their sixties.

My salary is performance based with a horrendously complex evaluation system that changes almost every year. I’m just coming up to setting my targets for this year, which, as with the two 6-monthly reviews of progress towards these set goals, consists largely of horse-trading and inventing ratings so you don’t look either too good or too bad, and of course being foreign I don’t quite fit into the system, so more pointless tweaking takes place to make allowances. They have a box for TOEIC score, so instead I put down my Kanji Kentei targets, but “write like a Japanese middle-school student” is hardly a major achievement from a Japanese perspective! An ex-colleague had the right idea – he just refused to fill in any form that wasn’t in English.
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I noticed over on Mutant Frog Travelogue that Adamu presented the results of research by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries and others into isues surrounding wedding banquet costs. Well worth a visit to check out the waste that goes on at such events.

Over the first five days of April 2007 MyVoice surveyed its internet community regarding the use of word of mouth web sites. To use the popular English buzzword, these sites could also be called CGM sites, or Consumer Generated Media sites, although I think that CGM covers a wider area than the word of mouth sites referenced by this survey.

Demographics

17,647 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based survey. 54% were female, 2% in their teens, 19% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties.

I’ve used kakaku.com a few times myself to get ideas of prices and user opinions on home applicances and computer peripherals. The lowest prices they display, however, are potentially misleading, I feel, as I don’t know how or if they account for haggling or for special one-day sales and the like. On the other hand, I do feel their user ratings are quite reliable. Very well worth a visit before purchasing, and their simple star ratings make it very easy to find out which items are best in their class. However, I end up doing most of my buying in a bricks and mortar store.
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Over the first five days of April 2007 MyVoice surveyed its internet community regarding home loans.

Demographics

17,241 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based survey. 54% were female, 19% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 15% in their fifties. Note that since one needs to be over 20 to get a loan, teenagers were excluded from this survey.

I have a loan, and I fall into the higher brackets in Q3 and Q4. Note that contrary to popular belief, it is not impossible for non-permanent residents to get a home loan, although naturally, any credit scoring that takes place will be rather harsh on those without demonstratable commitment to Japan. I got mine whilst in the process of applying for permanent residency, although they did not ask for any proof that this was actually the case. I am also a full employee (正社員, seishain) of a major company, so that no doubt helped me get a scary multiple of my salary as a loan, one which I am due to be paying off until I am 75…
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