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Some examples:

• "If you just focus on consumer needs", Kazuo says now, "you can't make great products".
• Failure is reversible. "You can lose a battle", Kazuo says, "and still win the war".
• Kazuo has built an organization that shuns consumer research the way real men once avoided quiche. "To keep competitors from grabbing our profits", he says, "we have to make things that are uniquely Casio".
• Kazuo has instilled that attitude throughout his ranks. Jin Nakayama, manager of Casio's digital camera unit, [...] did no market research before embarking on the project to build an ultrathin camera. "We don't usually base new products on consumer surveys", he says. "We draw on technology to show the market what's possible".
• When he introduced the Exilim S1 in June 2002, Nakayama skimped on the features that consumers generally deem most important in a digital camera. But without surveys or focus groups, Nakayama had decided that if he could make a camera thin enough, people might switch from thinking about digicams as family items to thinking about them as personal gear.
• Still, Nakayama acknowledges the downside to Casio's approach. "We sure do fail a lot", he says, almost with an air of pride. Often that means bringing products to market before their time, which is what happened with Casio's first foray into digital cameras.
• But at Casio, avoiding screwups isn't a high priority. The Japanese expression kishikaisei means finding a way to thrive in the face of almost certain death. At every Casio operation I visit, there's a kishikaisei story in which success rises from the ashes of some failed attempt to innovate.
• I ask Yuichi Masuda, general manager of Casio's watch division, if a few old-fashioned focus groups might have prevented not only the QV-10 digital camera disaster, but also his own area's recent (2003) duds, like the digital camera watch, the MP3 watch, and the GPS watch. He reacts as if I've suggested dipping sushi into ketchup.
• At the leading edge, he (Masuda) says, consumers can't provide much guidance. "If you asked people 10 years ago if they needed e-mail, would they have said yes?"
• Nobody likes to mess up. But at Casio --and everywhere else-- what looks like failure can sometimes be a step in the right direction.

Full article here:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business ... /index.htm

Remember this?

Who's man enough to man up and admit to sporting this in 86? hmmmm ..?

After that one, I had this one.

ivox3 wrote:Who's man enough to man up and admit to sporting this in 86? hmmmm ..?

That's too geeky ...

You know, I have looked in earth and sky (dozens of manufacturers and hundreds of watch models and instruction manuals, from Tags, to Breitlings, Omegas, Seikos ... etc) over the years and the best watch that I have found to date is a $25 Casio. Nothing else can match its features. Some have more features, but they are inconveniently laid out (too many clicks to get to a function). Some have have less features altogether. Yet, only one watch was just perfect and even Casio has not repeated that feat (so the planets must had been perfectly aligned during its design)

Although it is discontinued, I am going to find it online somewhere and get a couple of them. This way, i will be all set for the next 25-30 years

JDHill wrote:Remember this?

I thought *everyone* had that

Okay okay .. I didn't have one, ..but I'll admit to coveting one. I think that's worse. LOL .. Actually, I'm sure it's worse. I'm going on the Ebay to get one now and heal my inner nerd child.

Thomas: .. best watch on the planet is a Swiss Army. I have a TAG and others, .. I even have Swatches. lol ... but the Swiss Army is bar none the toughest, most accurate, dependable of them all. I'll give you a story ..

A friend of mine had the same model .... so we decided to just synchronize them one day -- to the second. Months passed and we forgot about we had done it. When we did remember and we checked 'em out and you guesed it, .. to the minute and second .. totally on the money. True.

Cool story ! and I do not doubt it ... but ... in a stroke of irony, somehow, precision is not my first priority in a watch

But your Mr. Gear ??? lol ...

ivox3 wrote:Who's man enough to man up and admit to sporting this in 86? hmmmm ..?

There was a geek in math class who had one and I was so jealous. He used it to cheat.

I completely agree with Mr.Kazuo!

JDHill wrote:After that one, I had this one.

It was my watch when I was a highschool boy.

Guys , at least take a look at the newer models:

my first digital camera had audio player and voice recorder. It was a Casio Exilim EX-M2, and it was smaller than most cell phones at that time... I still have it and occasionally use it, and it takes better photos than my Iphone...

I had one of those Casio Depth Gauge watches (old school, not the new Pathfinder version), it worked fairly well. Lost it one day when I was at an amusement park; very sad, then I got one of the G-shocks.

Casio keyboard mod.



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