Fukumimi writes about the recent Google Japan open house.

Even more disappointing than the fluffy presentations were the questions from the floor. The first guy up introduced himself as a marcom guy from MSFT who, in what I though was a fairly aggressive/pointed manner for a guest, asked something along the lines of “what do you (GOOG) think is the best marcom strategy?”. Which was answered (or not) with some typical fluff response which was equally unnoteworthy. And it pretty much went downhill from there. I think the questions asked showed GOOG that the people asking the questions were not GOOG material, so I guess the event served some purpose (maybe not for marcom, but rather for HR…). It also felt like some of the Googlers were getting a little bit defensive at some of the questions. Maybe they expected a load of fanboys who would gush praise and give them an ego boost. What they actually got were people who were either agnostic or even antagonistic. I guess the silent majority may have been fanboys, difficult to tell. There was a pretty edgy vibe in the room, I thought.
It was almost as if the Googlers couldn’t understand why the audience weren’t lapping up the kool-aid.
If they are as good at “innovating” and “learning from mistakes” as they claim to be, their humility should allow them to acknowledge that they have a huge amount of work to do in the marcom area in Japan, and they’ll learn from last night. Just plying guests with free food and booze does not guarantee a friendly audience.

Sounds like it didn’t go quite as planned….