Let's Talk about .. Design Workshop

Today (October 31st, 2013), halloween day, there was the International Workshop Participatory Methods for Co-design Approach at Tokyo Institute of Technology. This workshop was organized by Assoc.Prof. Celine Mougenot (Department of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering) and Assoc.Prof. Naoya Abe (Department of International Development Engineering).

Due to my schedule, I can attend only the morning session. It was hands-on session called "Design Principles for Non-Designers" by Ms. Victoria Gerrard. She is an executive director of O(Opportunity)-Lab, SUTD-MIT International Design Center, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore.

Ms. Victoria in hands-on session

She started with showing many products of banana leaf. I can understand many things related to design in that session. 

Design is understanding

First, "design is understanding". We should not be aggressive to the environment, but we should understand it. We can design although we do not know how it will be.

Who should design?

The answer is everyone. We can find design every where. Design can also be professional and universal. 

Learning from failure

Through the activity she asked us to design, we can learn that failure can be the lesson to have a good design. Many times we started with too complex idea, but it might not be OK to implement. Once we know failure, we can change, improve, or modify it.

Rich picture

It is another activity we tried. We drew our design which expressed something. I did my work as the disaster management rich picture as it is what I am interested in.

Discussion on our Rich Picture design

Although I cannot attend the full program, thank Ms. Victoria Gerrard, Assoc.Prof. Mougenor, Assoc.Prof. Abe, and all organizers for setting this workshop.

Let's Talk about .. Starting business in Japan

Special thanks to the invitation information from Assoc.Prof. Yuriko Sato, I attended a special lecture "Starting Business and Engaging in Volunteer Activities in Japan" by Dr. August Hergesheimer, Founder of Abios Co., Ltd. and Save Minamisoma Project. 

The lecture was at Tokyo Institute of Technology on October 30th, 2013. It is organized by the International Student Center, Tokyo Tech.

It was in the style of talk. Assoc.Prof. Yuriko raised the questions and then Dr. August answered those questions. The talk was mainly about his profile, his business, and his volunteer project.

There are many interesting things I learned from this special lecture.

Not heavy brain, but god-feeling
First of all, the way of thinking to create a new seed of business. He suggested that instead of using "heavy brain" (i.e., extensive information), we should use god-feeling to generate the idea of new business. As for his case, he established his business, Abios (nutrition business) in Japan. His company reached break-even point after the first year of business.

Consider five things before starting business
He mentioned 5 things to consider before starting business.
(1) "Product": but anyway product alone cannot make a great market;
(2) "Legality": how we can trade, protect, ...., our products;
(3) "Logistic";
(4) "Communication": how we can communicate the value of our product to the customers;
(5) "Cash flow": no cash flow, no business.

Language and information

It is true as he mentioned about the language and information. He talked the example of his business. In the past, the awareness of organic food for Japanese people was relatively low. One of the reasons is about language. Using Japanese and using English have different in terms of opinions since most of available information in Japanese language are written by Japanese, but available information English are not only written by American or English, but everywhere in the world. We can get more perspective by searching in English. Nevertheless, (in my opinion) information in Japanese also have many specific knowledge in various fields especially technology.

Save Minamisoma Project
Not only focusing on business, he is also working on his volunteer project, Save Minamisoma Project, which is founded by him. The project has established from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami and continued until now. If you would like to join the project, you can easily join and check their facebook.

Finally, what necessary for the entrepreneur is "Attitude".

Dr. August and me at Tokyo Tech

Thank you very much Dr. August for many things you explained in the lecture room and many things you talked with me after that.

Let's Talk about .. Design (Thinking) of Business and Tokyo Tech IS Lab

This autumn my advisor, Prof. Junichi Iijima, has chosen a book called "The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking Is the Next Competitive Advantage" by Prof. Roger L. Martin for our lab book reading seminar. For me, it is one of the interesting books because the book described and show many cases related to the story. Especially, the Knowledge Funnel of Prof. Martin explains how we can take a step to discover "innovation".

Last week, my lab mate, Chaeyoung Lim, presented about Design Thinking in this seminar. There is the definition of Design Thinking by Tim Brown (2008), CEO and president of IDEO, as "A discipline that uses the designer's sensibility and method to match people's needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity" mentioned in the book. I have known some works of Tim Brown since 2010 when I took a Design Thinking course of Assoc.Prof. Hiroyuki Umemuro. I also bought a Thai edition of the book "Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation" by Tim Brown at that time.

Tim Brown's concept of Design Thinking have been mentioned and referenced by many researches. From suggestion of Prof. Junichi Iijima and Asst.Prof. Jaehyun Park, I searched more about IDEO. I found many interesting stories created or supported by IDEO people. According to IDEO, innovation is the result of "Feasibility (Technical)", "Viability (Business)", and "Desirability (Human)". Prof. Iijima also said that currently our IS Lab at Tokyo Tech consists of experts in these three areas (i.e., Prof. Iijima in technological area, Assoc.Prof. Dai Senoo in business area, and Asst.Prof. Jaehyun Park in design area). 

I should learn more from them in order to be a person who can establish new innovation.

Ref.

[1] Brown, T. (2008). Design thinking. Harvard Business Review, 86 (6). 

[2] Brown, T. (2009). Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation, NY: Harper Business.

[3] IDEO. About IDEO. Retrieved October 2013 from http://www.ideo.com/about/

[4] Martin, R. L. (2009). The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking Is the Next Competitive Advantage, MA: Harvard Business Press.