Influencer Marketing
Expand your reach and engage with your target audience using this trending technique that blends celebrity endorsements with social media marketing.
Leading High Performing Remote Teams
How can leaders ensure that performance remains high in remote or hybrid-work environments?
Design Thinking
Learn the 5 phases of this problem-solving methodology and switch from technology-centered to user-centered thinking.
Gantt Chart
Invented in the early 20th century, the Gantt Chart is one of the building blocks of modern project management. In this online course, you'll learn how this tool can be used effectively to monitor progress and achieve your team's goals.
Navigating Change Successfully
The working landscape is continually shifting and being disrupted, so how to employees maintain a sense of stability? Listen to CEO and president of Carl ZEISS Japan Stefan Sacre share his expertise on dealing with change in organizations and entire industries.
Halo Effect
The halo effect is often leveraged for marketing and promotion. But as a type of cognitive bias, it can also have a subconscious impact on decision-making in the workplace. Learn why and (how to overcome it) in this online course.
Anchoring and Framing
Want to increase your confidence during negotiations? Master the principles of anchoring and framing to take your negotiation skills to the next level.
ZOPA and BATNA
Understanding ZOPA and BATNA will help you become a better negotiator, create more value, and feel more confident at the table.
Content Marketing
In this course, you’ll learn how compelling blogs, videos, podcasts, and other media can reach customers and drive sales. You’ll also learn steps for creating an effective content marketing plan, and some important ways to measure its impact and success.
Content marketing is a essential digital marketing strategy for companies looking to provide relevant and useful information to support your community and attract new customers.
Get started on your content marketing journey today.
Sustainable Innovation in Times of Disruption: Choices for a Better Society
There are opportunities for progress all around us. The key is to innovate on these opportunities sustainably.
To help identify most effective path forward, you'll need to gain a global perspective to these challenges in an open discussion. How can Japan and the world take action to create a more sustainable, innovative world? Where do you fit in?
It's time to find out.
Social Media & Digital Communications: Impact on Global Public Opinion
Social and digital media have dominated the communications industry for decades. But it's no secret that social media has the power to sway public opinion, and the way in which many companies use these platforms could be seen as manipulative.
What do companies need to be aware of when utilizing social and digital media? How can these mediums be used to better communicate strategically with the world?
Discover what top media and communications experts have to say.
Blockchain
Blockchain is one of the most captivating technologies out there. Learn what it is and how to make use of its opportunities in this short online course.
Mehrabian’s Rule
The 7-38-55 Rule, developed by Albert Mehrabian, suggests that effective communication relies less on the words we choose than on our tone of our voice, appearance, and body language. Learn how to put this theory to use for better communication in business.
Pareto Principle
Your time and resources are limited. Efficiency means learning to prioritize. The Pareto principle (also called the 80-20 rule) can help you identify the best way to use your time for maximum results.
Country Analysis Framework
Overseas expansion requires careful planning. The Country Analysis Framework can help you look beyond an industry-level analysis and reframe your view based on performance, strategy, and context. Try this short course to learn how it works.
SECI Model
The SECI model illustrates how knowledge is created and shared. Learn how to put it to use for best practices, and how the Japanese concept of “ba” fits in to broaden your perspective.
Johari Window Model
The Johari Window Model is a self-awareness framework that helps you better understand . . . you. Learn how its four quadrants can help you identify gaps between how you see yourself, and how others see you.
Sunk Costs
Wondering if you should continue an investment or look for something new? Sunk costs can have a powerful psychological impact on decision-making. Learn how to recognize them to ensure rational decisions.
CAGE Distance Framework
Want to expand overseas? The CAGE distance framework can help ensure you're constructing a solid global strategy in four areas: cultural, administrative, economic, and geographic. Learn how to leverage useful differences between countries, identify potential obstacles, and achieve global business success.
Groupthink
Groupthink refers to group pressure and the perception of consensus which together lead to ill-formed decisions—or even unnecessary risks. Learn to identify the warning signs of groupthink and apply countermeasures in this online course.
Deductive and Inductive Reasoning
Solving problems with the best results means using two types of thinking: deductive and inductive reasoning. In this online course, learn to form a broad premise, make observations, and form conclusions from different perspectives.
Critical Thinking: Hypothesis-Driven Thinking
Anyone can come up with a good idea. The real challenge is putting that idea into action. In this online course, explore how to form compelling, testable hypotheses and bring ideas to life in your own organization.
Critical Thinking: Structured Reasoning
Even a few simple techniques for logical decision making and persuasion can vastly improve your skills as a leader. Explore how critical thinking can help you evaluate complex business problems, reduce bias, and devise effective solutions.
Critical Thinking: Problem-Solving
Problem-solving is a central business skill, and yet it's the one many people struggle with most. This course will show you how to apply critical thinking techniques to common business examples, avoid misunderstandings, and get at the root of any problem.
How to Dream
Join globally renowned author and Columbia Business School professor Dr. Sheena Iyengar as she explains how to approach your dreams with a new perspective. Learn to reflect on what you long to accomplish and what stands in your way.
Logical Thinking
Logical thinking is at the heart of confident, persuasive decisions. This course will equip you with a five-point approach to more becoming a more logical thinker. Learn to classify ideas and distinguish fact from opinion.
Investing & Diversity: The Changing Faces of Venture Capitalists
Is the venture capital industry embracing diversity in investors? Watch global venture capitalists from around the world discuss the state of things and what needs to be done for a more inclusive future.
Servant Leadership
There's more to leadership than driving a team to profit. In fact, there's a word for looking beyond self-interest to prioritize individual growth: servant leadership. Try this course for a quick breakdown of what that is, how it works, and how it can lead to organizational success.
Organizational Behavior and Leadership
Ever wonder what makes a great leader? Whether your role requires leadership or not, understanding organizational behavior is useful for your career. This course from GLOBIS Unlimited can set you on your way.
Leadership vs. Management
Leadership and management are different skills, but today’s leaders must have both. Try out this course from GLOBIS Unlimited to understand the difference, as well as when and why each skill is necessary for motivation, communication, and value.
Strategy: Creating Value Inside Your Company
Have you ever wondered why certain companies are more successful than others? The answer is strategy: internal processes that control costs, allocate resources, and create value. This course from GLOBIS Unlimited can give you the tools you need for that strategic edge.
Strategy: Understanding the External Environment
To plan strategy on any level, you need to understand your company's external environment. In fact, your level of understanding can impact hiring, budgeting, marketing, or nearly any other part of the business world. Want to learn how to do all that? This course from GLOBIS Unlimited is the perfect first step!
Using Japanese Values to Thrive in Global Business
Japanese companies have unique cultural, communication, and operational challenges. But they also have values that have led to remarkable longevity. Check out this seminar to hear how these values help earn trust from overseas head offices and develop employees.
Turnaround Leadership: The Differences Between Japan and the West
What's the best way for leaders to communicate a shift in corporate strategy? How do you even know when it's time for such a change? This course explains how Japan might have one answer, Western companies another.
Conflict Management
Conflicts in the workplace are inevitable. But they can lead to positive outcomes if they’re managed well. Check out this online course for a two-step process that can help you manage conflict successfully.
Evernote Founder: How Tech Startups Can Break through in Japan
Can startup models from Hollywood and Silicon Valley succeed anywhere? Phil Libin, cofounder and CEO of startup incubator All Turtles, explains how AI can solve everyday problems to bring products to market.
Women Empowerment: Lessons from Cartier
How can women overcome gender inequality and reach their leadership goals? Cartier Japan CEO June Miyachi shares her secret in this special course from GLOBIS Unlimited.
Marketing: Reaching Your Target
Every company works hard to get its products into the hands of customers. Are you doing everything you can to compete? In this course, you’ll find a winning formula to turn a product idea into real sales. Follow along through the fundamentals of the marketing mix and see how companies successfully bring products to market.
Marketing Mix
Seeing good products into the hands of customers is no easy task. The marketing mix can help. It's a collection of strategies and tactics companies utilize to get customers to purchase their products or services, and is an essential part of the overall marketing process.
The Principles of Negotiation
With the proper skills and attitude, anyone can become a successful negotiator. But first, you'll need to learn the basics to prepare for, assess, and respond to offers for the best results. GLOBIS Unlimited can help.
Negotiation: Creating Value
Want to create more shared value between yourself and your negotiation opponent? Discover how cognitive bias affects the judgment of others. Try this course from GLOBIS Unlimited to master the value of negotiation.
Finding Your Life Purpose with Ikigai
Ikigai can guide you in your quest for self-discovery. Listen to Japanese brain scientist Ken Mogi explain why and how.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Want to leverage Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as a leader? Try this short course to see how the theory can be applied in practical work scenarios.
Confirmation Bias
We all subconsciously collect information that reinforces our preconceptions. It's natural . . . but it does lead to a kind of flawed decision-making called confirmation bias. To become more objective and impartial, check out this course from GLOBIS Unlimited!
An Investor's Lesson to Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurs have the power to transform societies for the better. But how do you attract investors to start or grow a business? Or to sell one? Check out this seminar for the answers to these and more, straight from a master venture capitalist!
Managerial Accounting
Managerial accounting is a powerful way to measure progress, identify problems, and meet your goals. Check out this course to learn how data-backed decisions can help you run your business.
Finance Basics: 1
For a healthy mix of quantitative planning, evaluation, and management, you need solid decision-making. And finance is the secret sauce! Get the essentials of finance in this two-part course from GLOBIS Unlimited.
Basic Accounting: Financial Analysis
Want to compare your performance vs. a competitor? Or evaluate a potential vendor? Then you'll need to conduct a financial analysis. This course will teach you how to use three financial statements and evaluate financial performance in terms of profitability, efficiency, soundness, growth, and overall strength.
Career Anchors
What drives you to be good at your job?
Career anchors are based on your values, desires, motivations, and abilities. They are the immovable parts of your professional self-image that guide you throughout your career journey.
Try this short GLOBIS Unlimited course to identify which of the eight career anchors is yours!
Digital Marketing Psychology to Transform Your Business
How does digital marketing really differ from traditional marketing? How is social media changing things really? And what's going on in Asia?
Pyramid Structure
Having the pyramid structure in your communication toolkit can not only help you approach a problem, but convince others that your solution is valid. Break away from linear thinking and test your logical thinking with this course from GLOBIS Unlimited!
Leadership with Passion through Kokorozashi
The key ingredient to success? Passion.
Finding your kokorozashi will unify your passions and skills to create positive change in society. This GLOBIS Unlimited course will help you develop the values and lifelong goals you need to become a strong, passion-driven leader.
AI First Companies – Implementation and Impact
AI is changing the way companies operate. How do you structure teams to increase efficiency?
Technovate in the Era of Industry 4.0
Is Industry 4.0 is the next step of human evolution human civilization? Dr. Jorge Calvo seems to think so. Join him to learn how the past can help you set goals for an exciting future of digital innovation.
Technovate Thinking
Business leaders of tomorrow need to harness the power of technology and innovation. That means understanding algorithms and how they drive business results. Discover opportunities to make technology work for your competitive edge.
Product Life Cycle
Every product takes a natural course through the market—there's a how, when, and why customers adopt products at different stages. Check out this course from GLOBIS Unlimited to find out how a product you use every day is part of this cycle.
Logic Tree
Logical thinking is the most valuable asset any business professional can have. That's why logic trees are such a valuable tool—they can help you identify a problem, break it down, and build it back up to a solution.
MECE Principle
Using the MECE principle can help ensure you categorize without gaps or overlaps. Check out this course from GLOBIS Unlimited for a practical demonstration of how it works!
Prior to the 1970s, few people thought computers would have a place in the average American home. Today, most people carry one around in their pocket, and our entire society is reliant on the power and convenience of computers.
3D printing is next.
Though much of today’s hype surrounds industrial applications of 3D printing, we already have an almost perfect model of what at-home 3D printing could look like in the future: the video game industry.
It’s not as crazy as it sounds. The industries are similar because both require users to purchase expensive hardware (the printer or game console) and separately sold data (the design file or game software) to operate.
These two industries will grapple with similar problems because the way consumers connect hardware and data are nearly the same. Reviewing the main concerns in the video game industry allows us to decide how we will set precedents for the 3D printing era.
Digital Rights Management (DRM) Software
In 2013, gamers boycotted the Xbox One after Microsoft attempted to eliminate the purchase and trade of secondhand games. On the other hand in 2020, virtually the same restrictions are accepted with barely a peep of dissent.
Digital rights management (DRM) software was first implemented in response to piracy, the (usually online) practice of acquiring media without first purchasing it, or illegally distributing legally purchased media.
Because designs for 3D printers are a form of digital media, they will likely be governed by the same DRM laws and practices currently in place.
Imagine this: you’ve just come to a new city and would prefer to live in a house with the same layout as your last. Sadly, your new city’s construction design library doesn’t have that design license. Maybe the city exceeded the number of times that house was licensed to be printed. Or perhaps you, the consumer, are expected to purchase a private license to print your house’s design. (Doesn’t matter that you had the license for your “old” house—you’re in a different city now.)
This may sound like science fiction, but it isn’t terribly far off. Houses are already being 3D printed, and as the practice becomes more widespread, the designs could easily fall under the same licensing conditions as e-books and video games.
This is because DRM works by granting licenses rather than ownership.
For example, Amazon can erase your e-books from your kindle on a whim. The Microsoft Store did exactly that and it’s been all but forgotten. If the servers of Steam—one of the world’s largest game distribution and DRM companies—blacked out permanently, almost all purchased content would suddenly be inaccessible. This is already happening with certain outdated DRM systems.
From games to appliances, the power of a centralized DRM regulation leaves an icky taste in many mouths—enough that campaigns like Defective by Design have cropped up to fight the very existence of DRM.
Huge media distributors winking out of existence and taking your media with them may sound extreme, so how about this: you need two extra plates for tonight’s dinner party, so you log into your favorite 3D printing digital distribution service. After pulling up the plate design to match your existing table setting, you discover that you’ve only been licensed to print four plates, all of which were printed last year. If you want more, you’ll have to buy a duplicate of the same license.
This is almost exactly how Microsoft tried (and failed) to license movies in 2013. If it happens with 3D printers, we run the risk of entering a far more dystopian scenario in which licensing fees don’t only apply to “wants” like entertainment, but also to “needs” like food and shelter.
A Contract-Based Workforce, or None at All
The workforce is changing dramatically in response to automation and AI, dissolving mid-level and routine jobs and forcing people into the gig economy, including video game developers.
Video games also rely heavily on freelance and contract-based employment for a variety of reasons, from streaming services like Twitch eating game publishers’ revenues to the simple fact that consumer pressure has kept the price of video games the same for nearly 10 years.
Despite gamers’ outcry over developers being out of work once games are published, the reliance on contract employment is unlikely to change until consumers are willing to pay more for games.
The same will be true of 3D company design firms.
The time, effort, and cost needed for 3D printing today is high. You need a basic understanding of design and a level of comfort with machines—at a time when most people struggle to name any 3D modeling software off the top of their heads. Even when market consolidation lowers the cost of 3D printers enough make them household items, experts will still be needed to provide laymen with printing designs.
If designs are one-time purchases rather than subscriptions, design firms will become a lot like game publishers, who hire a studio or freelancer on contract to complete a specific project. After the product’s launch, the company has little incentive to keep freelancers on payroll.
By the time 3D printers are standard household appliances, there will be a further complication for those seeking in-house positions: AI.
Engineering and architecture firms already utilize parametric design software to plug in guidelines and churn out endless designs. It’s possible future design firms won’t have human designers at all—they may have AI instead. For better or worse, this will hugely impact the future of work.
Microtransactions
If, like many video games, 3D designs are sold with an unlimited-use model, design publishers of the future will have to implement another hated strategy of the gaming industry: microtransactions.
Picture this: it’s 2045, and you’d like some chocolate chips in your cupcake. You input the request in your kitchen’s food printer, and there’s an error. Turns out chocolate chips aren’t a part of the cupcake design package you purchased. Would you like to add the compatible design alterations for a fee?
Right now, on-demand customization is the name of the game in the world of 3D printing. But customization is usually done manually with design software by someone experienced in both design and the relevant industry—architecture, engineering, food science, fashion, what have you. We may all have 3D printers in the future, but we can’t all be (or even have access to) design experts. As a result, the majority of us will rely on AI or experts who will want to be compensated. That compensation will come in the form of microtransactions.
Just as ubiquitous microwaves changed the eating habits of an entire country, food printers could eliminate cooking and food distribution as we know it. When enough people no longer know how to cook, food designers will have more freedom to increase the prices of their designs.
Video games have never been a necessity, but it’s possible we’re looking at a future where food, shelter, and clothing could all be 3D printed. Consumer tolerance of cosmetic microtransactions (such as adding chocolate chips to a cupcake) will likely have minimal societal harm. If we allow pay-to-play microtransactions on more crucial elements (such as paying extra to ensure your printed vegetables have the nutrition of a vegetable and not a potato chip), the impact on society may be a different story.
The New Information Age
Imagine capsule machines in grocery stores that print one-of-a-kind keychain accessories or candies.
Imagine customized food printed for individuals with allergies.
Imagine clothing sizes being a thing of the past—wedding suits and dresses printed the day of via measurements generated using depth-sensing cameras.
The world of 3D printing comes with fantastic possibilities, but there are nitty-gritty details between us and easy printing. Carefully considering the headaches of video games will prepare us for the trends and regulations of the 3D-printing era. Anything we don’t like, we’d better fight now. Our unthinking compliance sets precedents for more than just gaming.
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