Mama-san and Sushi Birds

The listening post for this early morning ritual was our tiny bedroom in an apartment building facing the shopping street in Azabu Juban, a fashionable district in Tokyo. The karaoke bar was on the opposite side of the narrow street at ground level. Windows open or closed, her dulcet tones found their way up to us on the 11th floor, night after night.

We are back home now. Our neighborhood, near the Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, couldn’t be more unlike Juban. It’s sublimely quiet with gorgeous yards, carefully managed and loved by a global gathering of tech executives and software engineers. There is no singing mama-san, and the neighborhood birds serenade us just about the same time every June morning.

It’s great to be back. We love the Great Pacific Northwest. We have deep family, personal, and professional ties going back decades. On Father’s Day, two grandsons, ages 6 and 4, provided on-demand entertainment and chaos. They “helped” us plant vegetables and flowers in the garden and will certainly excel when it comes time to harvest the potatoes (a Japanese experience called o-imo hori that the adult Birt daughters did in Japan when they were exactly the same ages).

Redmond and the entire Seattle region is exciting for its access to powerful new technologies such as Generative AI and emerging applications and use cases. We’re in the business of helping leaders reimagine and transform their organizations. So, we definitely want to keep our finger on the AI pulse here.

But life in Turbocharged Tokyo offers something special. There is always something to do, someone to meet, a new trend to decipher. Others thought so, too, judging by the gleaming white Bentleys lined up in front of the Chinese restaurant next to our apartment building (directly across the street from the now notorious karaoke bar). The chauffeurs also lined up, conspicuously waiting for the return of their VERY rich Chinese employers, who had fled Beijing’s latest crackdown.

Tokyo is only part of the story. Mayumi’s family lives in the foothills of Nagano Prefecture, close to the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics. How fun to sit in the municipal onsen (hot springs) on the men’s side with my father-in-law, while Mayumi accompanied her mother on the women’s side. The view of night-lit ski runs is breathtaking.

The onsen is called Pom Poko, after the mischievous Japanese tanuki (raccoon dogs) that star in the Studio Ghibli film of the same name. Pom poko is the sound the rascals make drumming their bellies. The connection for you anime fans (and the numbers are soaring), is that the area is the birthplace of Joe Hisaishi, the renowned composer of many of Studio Ghibli’s cinema soundtracks. Ghibli Park just opened last fall. The New York Times Magazine covered the opening with a wonderful article called “Spirited Away to Miyazaki Land.”

All of this got us thinking about migratory patterns and the opportunity to reimagine our future.In America, we have snowbirds—people who migrate south from cold, northern cities like New York, Chicago, Boston, and (anywhere in) Canada to find sunshine and warmth in sunbelt states like Florida and Arizona.

Instead of snowbirds, who migrate north and south, we want to be Sushi Birds who move east and west. Or, maybe it’s Sushi Birts. 😆

This migration needs to be seasonal. If you’ve ever spent a rainy season and summer in Tokyo, you will immediately understand Seattle’s summer appeal.

We are witnessing an exciting global migration of talent and technological transformation, with Japan as one of the key destinations. We want to participate in that migration.In February we gave a well-attended presentation on our Hawaii digital transformation (DX) projects to the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ). We were delighted to learn that the ACCJ covered our presentation for an article in their most recent journal issue.  Please click the image to download the PDF.

As Sushi Birds, we plan to migrate west to Japan in the early fall and stay in the same apartment building. With any luck, mama-san will still be singing her “I want money” song.

In the meantime, we can fly anywhere, anytime. If you’re looking to reimagine your future, contact us. We’d love to hear what direction you’re heading.

Next up: Wayfindings Reimagined.