I've written about the differences between Japanese and American engineering before, but one thing I didn't note in previous discussions is something that is a bit more subtle, yet terribly important to the outcome. Some, like my old boss Adam Osborne, refer to it obliquely as "the Golden Gut." Others refer to a difference between consensus decision making versus autocratic decision making. Personally, I refer to it as the need for a clear Guiding Hand.
In complex projects, there are leaders and workers, in various assortments, and in varying ability. And in those projects, there will be many decisions that need to be made. The relevant questions here are how do the decisions get made, and by whom?
In the consensus style, everyone of any importance relative to an issue shares their thoughts, and the group attempts to come to an agreement on what should and shouldn't be done in the project. If there's more than a low level of dissension, that needs to be resolved before the project can move past that point. In some cases, resolving issues ends up watering down some aspect of the product, while in others it helps correct something that users would have found to be a problem.
In the autocratic style, there's a final decision maker at the top with complete control. Apple is a very good example of that. Important products don't get released without Steve Jobs approval, and that approval tends to look at every decision, from aesthetic to functional. Flaws in Apple products--and yes, there are many flaws--tend to reflect flaws in Steve's thinking, not in engineering efforts. And in some cases, Steve is clearly thinking about FUTURE users, not present ones (e.g. removing floppy discs from a design long before floppy disc use ebbed).
Interestingly, both consensus and autocratic design teams tend to talk about "Best Idea Wins." Both would be wrong about that, in my view. Consensus decision making rarely finds the best idea, it finds the idea that is most palatable (just look at the US Congress). Autocratic decision making doesn't manage to get to the best idea, either, as the lone decision maker at the top is fallible. That's why I like Guiding Hand, better. Essentially, you have a top level decision maker who's making decisions about the decisions, not the features themselves. Decisions that head towards "most palatable" are revoked and forced to be reconsidered. But decisions that look like they may be "best idea" are allowed to live, regardless of where they came from in the organization.
So what does this have to do with cameras? Well, the Japanese tend to use consensus decision making. Worse still, in making decisions, they look more strongly at what their competitors are doing rather than what their customers need (notice I didn't write "want"). I believe that it's getting more and more rare to find a single person in the Japanese camera companies who is the clear Guiding Hand let alone an Autocratic Decision Maker. This wasn't always the case. In the old Japanese system, there were master designers, junior designers, and apprentices. Obviously, the master designers were the decision makers. For an amusing look at the traditional Japanese way of master and student, rent The Ramen Girl.
But as the Japanese companies became more global, they also found that they needed offshore production, subsidiary management, and broader marketing and sales efforts. As companies grow in size and breadth, more decisions need to be made and more decision makers start to appear. The Japanese culture was already broadly consensus driven (though it looked to elders for confirmation or clarity). So now we have design split from development. Development split from production. Production in a foreign country (Thailand for Nikon DSLRs from the D3000 to the D300s). Marketing efforts in at least three different major markets (US, Europe, Asia). That's a lot of decision makers, and a lot of consensus that needs to be done, and it's driving camera design and marketing to the middle. That's a perfect time for an upstart to appear, but who would that be?