Every summer, I visit Silicon Valley as a place for a “fixed-point observation.” I am able to discover many things observing companies that change the way they are as the time goes by.

• Newly arrived CEO re-directs the company’s direction, from artistry driven to practicality driven, providing “distributed extranet builder” software. Learned the art of steering company’s direction.
• Founder and CEO of an accounting software vendor believed that exponential growth could be achieved only by collaboration with partners. The company has come up with good results by concentrating its resource to product development and by asking its partners to concentrate on implementing the software to the customers.
  Learned the importance of holding up a consistent policy.
• A company led by a Pakistani CEO provides a “next generation groupware” continues to grow steadily. They have utilized the capital invested during the IT bubble and established a sound financial status. Learned a good example of “unspectacular but steady” management.
• A company develops an application that allows connection of ERP and other legacy systems. Core members are colleagues of a venture company that were successful.
  The group is investing the capital from a previous venture and starting a new venture. Learned a spirit of a venture entrepreneur.

I believe that the some of the surviving strategies of the CEOs can be applied to Japanese economy that is also in the bad time.