Canon Employees Are Forbidden to Sit Down, Walk Slowly

Apparently the president of Canon Electronics (Hisashi Sakamaki) wrote this book: <a href="http://www.amazon.co.jp/exec/obidos/ASIN/4396612486/mitsu-101-22/ref=nosim" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.co.jp/exec/obidos/ASIN/4396612486/mitsu-10...</a> whose title translates to "A company will do well if you get rid of the chairs and computers"<p>(Caveat: I don't read Japanese - I'd appreciate confirmation of that translation from someone. I read about it at <a href="http://www.dannychoo.com/detail/mac/eng/image/19639/Canon+Electronics.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.dannychoo.com/detail/mac/eng/image/19639/Canon+El...</a>)<p>It seems weird that anyone would bother with the 5M/3.6sec rule ... that's only 3.1 mph - I doubt many people walk much slower than that. Do they really think the morale hit is really worth the seconds someone would save walking 3.1 mph instead of a ultra-leisurely 2mph?

For some reason this reminds me of elementary school. In the cafeteria, we had this big traffic light that supposedly turned from green to yellow then red if there was excessive noise. If it went red there was some sort of artificial consequence, most likely some teachers yelling at everyone to quiet down.

I hope this is some kind of a joke.

I remember time when City of London bankers and brokers used to have two hour lunch with a few pints of beer. Then their banks were bought up by soulless Americans and the enslavement began.<p>In a few years everybody was forced to eat their lunch at their desk.<p>That's why I don't see this Japanese example as excessively cruel.

From the article:<p>&#62; The big boss, as a reward for thinking up all this stuff, gets to lounge in a nice, relaxing chair

Next step: Habanero on the toilet seats.

Too little info, but it could be an ok idea in some situations. Not for every department, obviously, and it sounds a lot less inhumane if you imagine it properly spaced with breaks.<p>Might be a bit healthy too. There are few things that eat your soul as much as being in front of a computer with nothing important to do for a few hours every day.

So this President of Canon is using employees that he has some sort of supervision over to help prove a personal point of his that will net him a personal monetary gain?<p>That doesn't sound like conflict of interest at all...

Is this article for real?<p>"Let's rush: If we don't, the company and world will perish."

How are they measuring people's walking speed?

Is this inhumane?