From the Editor:


Message for the New Year 2014

Editor: Toru Nakagawa (Professor Emeritus, Osaka Gakuin University)

Posted in Japanese on Jan. 11, 2014; in English on Jan. 26, 2014
buttons guide you to the pages written in Japanese.

Message (Toru Nakagawa, Jan. 15, 2014)

Greetings from Japan for a Happy New Year 2014!!  Wish the year be healthy, happy, and successful for you all and peaceful in the World.

It is a tradition in Japan to send post cards for celebrating a new year.  In the Japanese page of this site I posted my New Year post card, which I sent to my relatives and friends (mostly non-TRIZ related people).  Here is the card in Japanese:

The photoes in the post card are enlarged here:  The first one was taken in Finland last February. This photo was first shown in my top page last February, but now it becomes much brilliant, just as I saw in my eyes, as a result of some photo retouching.

The second and the third photoes are from the outdoor opera performance in the Arena of Verona, Italy.  The upper photo shows the stage of 'Nabucco' on July 4 and the lower one the whole arena performing 'Aida' on July 3.  I enjoyed both trips to Finland and Italy with my wife Masako.

 

Last year politics in Japan were misled largely by the Prime Minister, telling untruthfully that Fukushima Nuclear Plants are completely under control.  On the basis of such a untruthful campaign, his government is promoting to sell nuclear plants abroad, to invite the 2020 Olympic Game in Tokyo, to prepare for constructing a new type (Superconducting Maglev) of Chuo Shinkansen connecting Nagoya and Tokyo bypassing many important cities along the coast.  Such policies assume 'technological developments and economical growth are always good' without reflecting the life and happiness of people and future of the globe.  The forced passage of Special Secret Bill and Prime Minister's visit to Yasukuni Shrine are signs of his government's intention towards eroding the Constitution's pacifism principles.  I am against such misleading directions.

Japan is now facing with big problems in its society.  Problems, such as decreasing trends of children population, aging of society, instable employments and widening disparity, issue of energy, and decrease in the food sufficiency ratio, are demanding urgent addressing and solutions by the government and society for keeping people's lives.  Concerning to these many big problems in Japan (and in the world as well), we need to identify the tasks and goals to be achieved and to find out general directions to pursue.  To such big and complex problems and issues, we should have good Creative Problem Solving methodologies to apply in various places and occasions, I believe.

Being aware of such needs, for these 2 year after my retirement of the university, I attended at many symposia and seminars on different themes.  (Fortunately in Tokyo many national and international meetings are held open to public and without charge.)  I have been excited with presentations of new and excellent achievements in science and technology and also unique approaches to social or educational issues, etc.  They are of course reports of results of some 'creative problem solving' mostly on a specific topic.  It should be nice, I think, if the reporters would recognize their own target directions, ways and methods of their thinking, and processes of their trials and practices in realizing their solutions, etc.  Such reports may become actual case studies of applying their own methods of creative problem solving.  I wish such case studies be documented and published openly. 

With such desire in my mind, I am trying to do my own limited work of what I can do, with getting help from friends.  My generation, around 70 years old, often has enough knowledge and experiences and keeps still sufficient intellectual and physical capabilities.  Thus only if we have high motivation and find suitable places and chances, we can still contribute to the society in various ways, I believe.

This year I would like to work in the following themes and activities:

(1) On the basis of this "TRIZ Home Page in Japan" site, I will keep working towards the main goal of establishing and spreading the 'General methodology of creative problem solving'. 

(2) In such a field, I will introduce and post good presentations/papers by Japanese as well as foreign authors, in Japanese and in English pages (hopefully in bidirectional translation) in the home page.

(3) To establish the 'General Methodology of Creative Problem-Solving and Task-achieving' (CrePS) by writing down its details and posting them publicly in Japanese and in English. 

(4) To restart the publication of the "TRIZ Practice and Benefits" book series in Japanese.  Revised Japanese editions of Darrell Mann's "Hands-On Systematic Innovation" and "Matrix 2010".  For this purpose, I will start to be the publisher in business.

(5) To give presentations at international and domestic conferences and to have chances of lectures, trainings, actual applications, etc., as much as possible.

(6) To make this Web site more user-friendly and attractive, in cooperation with some colleagues and groups.

Please contribute your thoughts, reports, communications, etc. to this public Web site. It should be my great pleasure if the present home page would be of some help for you.

Wishing you your health, success, and happiness throughout the new year,

Sincerely, 

Toru Nakagawa,  January 11, 2014.

 

 

General index New Information Introduction to TRIZ TRIZ References TRIZ Links TRIZ News & Activities TRIZ Software Tools TRIZ Papers and Tech Reports> TRIZ Forum General index
Home Page New Information Introduction to TRIZ TRIZ References TRIZ Links TRIZ News & Activities> TRIZ Software Tools TRIZ Papers and Tech Reports TRIZ Forum Home Page

Last updated on  Jan. 26, 2014.     Access point:  Editor: nakagawa@ogu.ac.jp