Joi Ito has posted an interesting story about the "Blueprint for Japan 2020." It sounds like there will be quite a few interesting ideas put forth in this document, but it makes me wonder what is really necessary to create change in Japan...

All such programs are probably helpful in some small way; one of course can't expect that isolated efforts can make a huge difference, but they are certainly worth attempting nonetheless.

But what interests me is the larger question: What will it take to really effect change in Japan? I think the answer is clear. It will take a slow, far-reaching change in the Japanese culture, and a concomitant change in Japanese consciousness, to bring it about.

I think we've been seeing signs over the past 6-8 years that Japanese culture is slowly changing, mostly under the unbearable economic pressure of this 10+ year stagnation. But how long will it take for those changes to really affect the consciousness of the man on the street, eventually causing him to break with long-held traditions and do something radical?

Japan has proven able to maintain a staggering amount of its indigenous culture through successive uphevals and massive societal change. The matted tangle of traditions must be slowly pulled apart now, until its strands begin popping, one by one, and we finally end up with a flexible web: able to react almost instantaneously to changes in the world; able to keep up with the ever-quickening pace of globalization.