Cell Phone Sommeliers on the Way?

Japan is reportedly toying with the idea of educating and licensing "sommeliers" to help potential buyers wade through the vast sea of options available for a new cellphone purchase. "Japan's communication ministry is looking to the private sector to manage the potential nightmare exam and certification process, with children's online safety highlighted as an important part of the plan. Mobile sommelier sounds like a pretty sweet title, we can totally feel how an HTC TyTN II might be paired with an earthy unlimited plan followed by the soft nutty finish of a 200-minute a month daytime calling package."

Comments

Re:Where's TFA?

[Malevolent Tester]

Here.

A future scene.....

[Urger]

Though the original stock comes from Scandinavia the terroir of this particular batch came from Shanghai. You can smell the rich, earthy aroma of circuits left on the assembly line until they were perfectly ripe. Taste high-impact plastic exterior, make sure you taste it on the back of your tongue. As you can tell it's quite a balanced flavor. Quite correct sir, vintage 2002. It takes time to bring a phone to that level of complexity.

Re:Where's TFA?

[dattaway]

I thought the whole point of slashdot was to heckle the people who DID read the article!

Used Car Salesmen-Like People More Likely

[celest]

It's far more likely that this will just result in more used car salesmen-types in the cell phone sales market. The sommelier analogy is almost offensive to real sommeliers. Certified or not. You are not going to get people who truly understand the intricacies of cell phone technology, features, software, services, plans to take a retail sales job. It just doesn't work that way. Sommeliers are a respected profession that requires years of apprenticeship. It is about culture and tradition.

Cell phones have always been about fads and over-hyped widgets. It's all about pushing out the current model and signing people up as fast as possible. The market is too cutthroat to allow for anything else. For this same reason, sommeliers don't stand around selling wine at your local grocery store.

I walked into a supposedly high-end cell phone store a few months back. They had towering signs that said things like "Ask our experts anything! They will help you figure everything out!". I walked up to one of the reps who wore a big badge saying "I'm a cell phone expert, ask me anything!". I asked a simple question: "Which devices do you have that run Symbian OS?". I received a blank stare and "What's a simmian?" in response. Followed by "We have lots of phones with cameras and MP3 players. Do you want one of those?"

I'm not holding my breath that this program will make any difference.

Re:sommelier?

[gstoddart]

Why don't they use something that is related, in English, or at least a bit more understandable, do the Japanese speak French? Probably some English lit major justifying his/her degree/salary. These are probably the same people who make up all that management speak, like instead of chart or table they use 'matrix'

Because, sometimes English words don't exist which have the nuance of a foreign word -- they can lack that certain "je ne sais qua". :-P

A highly trained individual whose job it is to help you select from a wide array of choices ... I can't think of a specific word short of "expert" or "salesman" (both of which can have negative connotations, or might just lack the dignity implied by the French word) which exactly conveys what that word says. :-P

I once had a native speaker of French as me for the English word for "gourmet", to which I had to explain that we had never come up with a single word which conveyed as much as "gourmet", so we stuck with it. The word carries with it a lot of implied meaning and suggestion that aficionado or whatever wouldn't convey.

Let's face it, English is just plain littered with words which have never really been translated. Sommelier is one of them. If you need to express a particular connotation or inference which is attached to a certain word, using substitutes makes the word understandable to more people, but might lessen the actual intended meaning. Subtle nuance is something which is difficult to replace with a synonym.

Words from other languages which have been kept intact aren't that uncommon.

Cheers

Re:Curious analogy

[PPH]

The analogy between cell phones and wine seems rather strained to me.

Not at all. Obligatory bad car analogy: Neither mix well with driving.

Japanese Retail Smiles

[writerjosh]

We have to remember a couple things:

1. Japan is very far ahead of us as far as cell-phone technology is concerned. They've had fully-functional video phones for at least a year or two, for example (as in, you can communicate via real-time video).

2. Japanese retail is much more about service than most US retail. We just want to get in and get the product, but the Japanese are all about greeting you at the door, pleasant smiles, and all of that.

Therefore, a sommelier isn't all that strange in the context of Japanese retail. It's strange to Americans, but to the Japanese, it must make sense, otherwise they wouldn't bother.