Mogic considers

Era of Speed, Era of Maturity

The rebranding project for the LearnO e-learning system will soon come to an end.

I started in 2020, before the Corona disaster, and it has been three years now.

Do you see this as long or short?

For us, the rhythm was just right.

We discuss the details of the project, build it up tightly, and conduct a series of detailed tests.

The amount of work alone takes a lot of time, as it should.

Above all, the team needed time to mature to another level.

I found a suitable expression for this in relation to machine learning, and I quote

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The "Tricks" of Socializing Solved by Dr.
https://bunkyosha.com/books/9784866516493

There are always a number of possible paths to take, so it is no wonder that we are not quite sure which is the shortest path to our goal.

Fortunately, machine learning is useful here as well.

abbreviation

To answer this problem, an algorithm called "gradient descent" is used in machine learning.

This is the method used when trying to optimize a process and minimize its cost function (error).

abbreviation

The gradient descent method teaches us to identify paths experimentally.

The way to do this is through trial and error, constantly reevaluating the environment and adapting to changes, and not being afraid to turn back.

And the last important lesson is not about the direction of the steps, but about their length.

This is the issue known as "learning speed.

To obtain results with the highest precision, the algorithm should be made to have correspondingly shorter steps, to move forward gradually, and to slowly build up its findings.

On the other hand, if the learning speed is faster, it arrives at the bottom of the valley faster, but the accuracy of the steps is coarse, so the lowest point may simply be overstepped.

In other words, fine-tuning the learning rate to get the best results as quickly as possible, one of the biggest challenges of the gradient descent method.
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In the early days of IT services, everyone was chasing speed.

To be precise, the timing was good, so if we could speed up the process, we were able to meet the times, even if we had to put quality aside.

Now, however, everywhere you look, the landscape has become completely mature.

Perhaps we have shifted to a world where speed alone is not enough.

If that perception was correct, the answer was that we would just wait for the team to mature.

Behind the scenes of the rebranding from the birth of LearnO
https://prtimes.jp/story/detail/9B50qPSmqlb

The important thing is to be slow and steady.

We have a lot of work to do." Resources are tight. We need to hire people."

When I am busy, I often hear these voices.

However, as you are familiar with, hiring does not easily increase resources or make things easier.

I can think of several reasons.

It takes more than six months for a new person to get used to it and move around well.

Because it's a busy site and I don't have enough spare time to teach the people who come in.

Because they make mistakes on their own without being taught, and then they stop.

Because as the number of people increases, the cost of communalization will in turn double.

If you're in a hurry, you're going to be lax in your hiring criteria.

Instead of getting any easier, the signs are not so good.

Perhaps because it is not a cause and effect of things to do / resources = time to accomplish.

So I stop for a moment and try to regulate my breathing, which has been disturbed by my haste.

Looking out the window

breathe heavily (e.g. with much movement of the shoulders)

Breathe in with a sigh

Also, fouh.

When is it really ideal to hire and for what motives?

Under what circumstances should the person being hired be welcomed?

What happens after the hiring process to make it an ideal team?

After inhaling, I thought, well, maybe I should have asked this first.

There is no better way to think about what is important than to think about it loosely.

They, they, they who flapped their wings

Using a service called Caiwani, created by a subsidiary, we are now able to communicate with internship graduates.

Caiwani https://caiwani .net/

Originally, Mogic had its own topic posting service linked to its internal chat, and Caiwani was created in reference to this service.

Chat is convenient for instant messaging, but its weakness is that it flows too fast, making it impossible to track past history.

So, in conjunction with the chat, we were able to accumulate topics by theme, which led to loose education.

For the first time, we are trying to share information virtually with Mogic's graduating intern alumni and current employees/interns.

I have no idea what kind of information would be appreciated by someone I haven't seen in six months to a few years.

For starters, I put up a list of books I buy at Mogic each week and write a Q&A session from a current intern.

We are thinking of their future as they flap their wings through trial and error.

Riding on a local train

In the IT industry, there is a term called the Attention Economy.

Attention, in other words, is the idea that the economy will turn only when people pay attention to it.

Unlike in the past, we deal not with objects but with formless consciousness.

Once upon a time, an acquaintance of mine used to say, "You have to take away the line of sight.

They believe that if they can hold the line of sight, they can create a pipeline to send information and probabilistically decide what to do next.

Crushed into almost imperceptibly small pieces and skillfully rearranged, the shimmering shards flow into everyone without hesitation.

The better that logic works, the longer as possible, the more attention-grabbing the dynamics will be.

The significant increase in the amount of time spent looking at smartphones in the last decade reflects this constant effort.

That's what I thought as I scrolled through the screen while being swayed by the local train running along the seashore, rattling, tapping, tapping.

Where was the attention before it was directed to the smartphone?

I can no longer recall.

Why it should be fun

The projects are fun, and before you know it, you find yourself adding one or another.

There is more than one cloud service that we provide to our clients, for example, LearnO, an e-learning system.

One main, one in the next major development, one in operational system improvement, one as we promote announcements, one in marketing, one in customer support, one in inside sales, one in sales, one in partner collaboration, and one in new idea development.

As with any other service, we triple the number of things we do, so that in the short term we have one project to make an app, one to make a calendar, one to make novelty items, one to think about displays, one to update the recruitment site, one to improve the way we work, one to audit risks, one to find out how to recruit, one to find P-marks and ISMS, one to improve the way we recruit, and one to improve the way we work. One project to update the recruitment website, one project for each media, one project for overall education, one project to audit risks, one project for P-Mark and ISMS, one project to find ways to recruit, one project to improve the way we work, one project to come up with new internal tools, one project to One project to come up with internal tools, one project to develop the next service.

If you include meetings with each department and client, the number must be substantial.

If the project is still progressing slowly, without rest or weariness, it is because it is fun.

purify oneself (religiously) at the end of the summer

It has been exactly six months since the beginning of the year.

First of all, I thank God that everyone was safe.

At the same time, it also helps to flush out things that have been stagnant and unnoticed on a day-to-day basis.

Data that is no longer seen, websites that are not updated, overgrown plants, workflows that don't work, cluttered desks, outdated materials, too many agendas, piles of files, neglected work, books that don't fit, faded floor tiles, clogged coffee roasters, ideas that no longer work.

Throw away what you throw away, give away what you give away, stop what you stop, divide what is too big, change the way you do what doesn't work, and if you have been blinded, be courageous enough to see it.

The more we flow, the more we feel the process that everyone has worked hard for.

I'm still having trouble with the basics.

Ask someone else to do the job.

Such basic things are what bother me the most.

They want something like this to be made by when, and in that way.

As long as the requirements are communicated, it should be enough to organize them.

I told them without omission, without delay, and without missing a beat, he said.

But, well, that is what can go wrong.

It's not what I expected, it's slower than expected, I told you.

If so, we must consider more than organizing.

That said, this is troubling.

Since this is my first time, should I be sincere with him face to face?

No, or maybe I should make a little joke.

He's the usual guy, but he seems, I don't know, quite busy, I wonder if he's okay.

The way he speaks is the same, but why the muffled face?

If you want to cut it out, would you prefer Monday morning first thing, but Wednesday afternoon first thing?

I can make do with note-taking, but yes, I might be happy with a non-skimpy document.

I wonder if your voice conveys a sense of urgency, yes, without daring to say so.

I'm glad you understood quickly, but I wonder if the follow-up is too much.

If you care about it, it will overflow endlessly.

But even this has its limits.

I can't think that hard. My head is punctured."

So I have one piece of advice.

Think back to all the jobs you've been asked to do.

There are people who had an easy time doing it and people who had a hard time doing it.

What's the difference?

And.

I'll be in a good mood if someday someone says, "Working with you is easy.

The deadline is blurred by the smile that spills out.

Long interview continues

We will be posting long interviews from time to time this year, and I talked about the new "About Creativity" section.

Since the release is still some time away, I'd like to give you a quick preview of what's to come.

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- First, I would like to ask you about "creativity you can hold in your hands." Since Mogic is an IT company, our productions are mainly digital, such as programs and web design. But why do you make calendars and novelties in-house as objects?

Yamane: Why do we have to come up with the idea from scratch, select the materials, create the design, send it to printing, inspect it, package it, and ship it all by ourselves, when a typical company would just add a logo or change the colors?

- Yes, it is. The question arises as to whether it would be better to hire an outside expert to do the work since it would be time consuming and expensive for someone in-house to do it.

Yamane: I guess this has something to do with how we view creativity. This is a bit of a detour, but let me start with the background of the times we are currently in.

Today, we are overflowing with things. So it is easier to buy things than to make them, and if I were to count the number of times I have experienced making something new from scratch with my own hands in a year, I would say less than three.

I might install a new application or change the pattern or shape a little, but mostly I combine things that someone else has made. It's not that there is anything wrong with combining things, it's just that we live in a very convenient world.

But when that becomes the norm, I wonder how we can learn about the feelings and processes of those who are trying to create something. It is not possible to create something from scratch in the true sense of the word, but I try to create something as close to a zero base as possible.

When you just buy something, it is difficult to realize why they decided to make it or how they wanted to express themselves. I guess we try to make them ourselves in order to trace the feelings of the creator.

It's like we are trying to build from scratch, taking time to confirm what we want and what we are comfortable with one by one.
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Somehow, when I look back on what we talked about later, I feel like a stranger.

[To be added at a later date] Click here for the rest of the interview article.
https://www.mogic.jp/category/interview/13694