288 What Is Sontaku?

<p class="MsoNormal"><em><span lang="EN-US" xml:lang= "EN-US">Sontaku</span></em> <span lang="EN-US" xml:lang="EN-US">is a Japanese word which means to surmise or conjecture about someone else’s feelings or desires.  It is often associated with another Japanese word <em>omotenashi</em> or superb levels of hospitality, for which Japan is rightly famous.  <em>Sontaku</em> means supplying an <em>omotenashi</em> style high level service before the customer has realised they actually need that service – anticipating the customer, based on the host’s conjecture about what they might need. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" xml:lang="EN-US">Steve Jobs at Apple did that with the iPhone.  We didn't realize we needed it when we were all happy with Nokia, Blackberry, etc., but now we can’t go back.  Wayne Gretzky, the legendary ice hockey star made the same point, when he said “skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it is now”.  Gary Vaynerchuk from Vaynermedia is famous for understanding where our “digital attention” is heading before we understand it ourselves.  All of these aspects have a <em>sontaku</em> or conjecture element to them.</span><span lang="EN-US" xml:lang="EN-US"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" xml:lang="EN-US">What about leaders in Japan?  There are many business challenges facing us here: the pandemic, currency movements, government regulations, North Korea threatening our security, supply chain issues, oil price fluctuations, China’s military control of the sea lanes to Japan, weak consumer spending, potential collapse of the welfare system in Japan due to the aging population, Government debt levels, etc.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" xml:lang="EN-US">Another biggie is staffing.  Delivery companies can’t keep up with on-line retail purchase orders, soba restaurants can’t get young people to spend the many years required to learn the craft, speaking Chinese will help when we go to the convenience stores, because not enough Japanese wan