Petit Bourgeois

Since I joined the European headquarters of ASICS, I've been battling on several fronts, with my colleagues, to improve the web presence of our two brands (ASICS for performance sports equipment, particularly running shoes, and Onitsuka Tiger for fashion-oriented products).

This is an acid test for me: I have the opportunity to implement many of the principles I hold dear, and my job is to create a couple of great web sites. And it turns out to be harder than I expected: many of those principles run into practical difficulties or differences of vision, and I find myself spending a lot of energy pushing things in the right direction, much more than I thought would be needed.

Some obvious choices need to be defended, not so much against people who don't have the same belief, but against an array of issues that passively stand in the way.

At the moment, I'm battling to nail down the ASICS site concept, and it turns out to be more complicated than it sounds, while my French colleagues aren't waiting for Europe.