Mogic considers

With the combination of a small number of people + software + servers and robots
We are promoting a new era of company management.
We hope to share part of this process with you in this corner.

Representative Director Yoichi Yamane

May 29, 2023

look ahead during a critical moment

A member recently asked me, "I received a rather sketchy request (ball) from a partner, how should I handle this?

In business, work exchanges are compared to catching a ball, expressing that the ball is in the other person's hands and it is coming this way.

A rough ball is probably a consultation where the recipient is unable to take immediate action.

Naturally, it would be nice if we receive a story that is easily understood and organized, but it does not necessarily mean that the other party is throwing a rough ball with bad intentions.

I will take up one obvious situation.

If you were buying a house for the first time, what questions would you ask your real estate agent?

He seems to say, "It would be nice if a family of four could live comfortably, supermarkets are nearby, and schools are close by, and I'm also concerned about public safety.

That should seem like a rough enough ball to the other party.

Therefore, there is no malice on the part of the person asking the question, and the cause lies in a different place.

It all started when I casually threw a big ball.

To restate it precisely, it is not casually, but rather, it is something that is thrown because it has to be thrown.

For this to happen, there is a background of gathering information because it is still an unfamiliar field, but without superiority, and being forced to speak to the other party in a bashful manner all together.

If we expect that they will be pleased with the ball, we think they will be pleased if we return the rough ball, which they do not feel bad about, clean and organized and with less information.

In the real estate agent's words, "First, please list three things that are important to each of the four members of your family. Then, put them in order, number one, number two, and number three. Finally, the four of you can show them to each other and make a unified number 1, 2, and 3 for the family, which will make things easier.

If this is the case, my response was that it might be a good idea to consider one move ahead to improve the rhythm of the opponent, even though it might take some time and effort.

May 22, 2023

I can't do addition or multiplication.

Intuitively, we know that adding happiness to happiness does not double happiness.

Probably the same thing would be true for happiness* happiness.

This and similar kinds of things are full of things like satisfaction and hope.

Then, what about those who work?

The number of people who work + the number of people who work = twice the number of people who work.

However, there are cases where the amount of work to be done + the amount of work to be done = not twice the amount of work to be done.

I think one way to go beyond the artificial intelligence boom is to aim for such a place.

May 15, 2023

Here comes the jerk chicken.

A kitchen car (food truck) of Jamaican jerk chicken came to our office.

The smoke was billowing as the sweets were made on the spot, and the crowd enjoyed a festive atmosphere for the first time in a long time, competing for a turn at rock-paper-scissors-scissors and coveting the leftover new sweets.

Why bother having a kitchen car come all the way out here? You may ask, but if it makes the place you work together more enjoyable, there's nothing better.

May 08, 2023

What is curiosity?

What is (having) curiosity? One theory says that it is "the feeling of wanting to fill in the blanks when there is a discrepancy between what you assumed in advance and what actually happened.

Yes, it was really supposed to be this way, but when I think it is strange, I want to investigate the cause and the situation anyway.

I dare to think of the opposite meaning here.

In other words, what does it mean to be "incapable" of curiosity? I mean, what does it mean to "not have curiosity"?

At first glance, this question may not seem necessary, but it is surprisingly often asked.

Then, since it is the opposite of the first definition, there will be "no discrepancy between what was assumed in advance and what actually happened" or "it was not assumed in advance in the first place".

If there is no discrepancy, there would be no desire to investigate anything, so I will eliminate that part and focus on the other "not assumed in advance," which is why it cannot be assumed.

That's because we can't assume anything because we have little or no knowledge of the situation.

Without a minimum of knowledge, it would be difficult to imagine the patterns that are about to occur.

That said, it is not easy to learn something you don't know.

I think it is better to be in an environment where people can naturally learn basic knowledge in order to have curiosity.

Curiosity itself is not the goal, so it is not something I am aiming for, but I think it is more interesting if everyone is excited, so I am creating all kinds of mechanisms to expose people to things they don't know.

May 01, 2023

Thinly and gingerly

The rain that blessed the crops has passed and the sky has become clear and sunny.

As usual, we begin our activities on the roof of the office.

But first, I dozed off in a folding deck chair.

When a swallow flutters on a fluttering cloud or a zelkova flutters in the breeze, something you want to do comes to mind.

Oh, how I wish it had been a while since we've all had a pile of croquettes and a cold craft beer.

Past the Corona Disaster, we are warming up in the crawlspace.

April 24, 2023

Real fruit is delicate and raw.

When I wander around markets in old towns overseas, I see all kinds of fruits that I have never seen before, and after asking about them, I soon find myself wanting to eat them.

The soft and fresh aroma spreads, the crunchy and hard texture is soft and sweet, and it melts like custard all over the tongue.

I thought it was the result of the exotic travel experience, but apparently not.

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Fruit Hunters
https://www.hakusuisha.co.jp/book/b205742.html

Today, fruits have become a part of everyday life.

Anyone can eat as much as they want.

They are on store shelves all year round, inexpensive, and before you know it, they are shriveled and moldy on your kitchen counter.

Eating fruit is almost obligatory.

Many people say they don't like fruit.

Perhaps it is because the fruits are eaten an average of two or three weeks after harvest.

The global economy demands standardized products, i.e., reliable, uniform, and homogeneous products.

abbreviation

The apples I bought were exactly the same in Borneo, Brazil, Budapest, and Boston.

Many of the fruits we eat are transport-resistant and have been modified to stay fresh for up to ten days under the glaring fluorescent lights of supermarkets.

The result is "cyborg fruit.

abbreviation

Real fruit is delicate and raw and requires careful handling.

Although humans have processed fruit in various ways, fruit is inherently uncontrollable and unpredictable.

Even apples from the same tree have different flavors.

Quality varies depending on what time the crop was harvested.

The sugar content of a single orange changes from one cluster to the next.
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That being said, it is obvious.

Newly threshed and freshly milled rice has the smell of earth.

There is always something spilling out of the fruit that is always on the palate instead of always being available.

I'll continue the quote for another verse or so.

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While a select handful of fruits dominate international trade, the planet is awash with fruits that are inaccessible to humans or ignored and forgotten by them.

For example, pina colada-flavored mango. Orange holomuy strawberries. White blueberries. Blue apricots. Red lemons. Golden raspberries. Some pink-colored cherimoya.

The diversity of fruits is dizzying.
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This is not limited to fruit.

Beyond the commodification that efficient distribution brings, abundance is lost.

I wonder what would happen if it were a company, a way of working, education, or a business model.

Just as trees and plants and flowers that are trying to live are remaking their fruit, the more dizzying it gets, the more it seems that there are so many different forms.

April 17, 2023

When the dust settles, 38 years later

Out of 365 days in a year, there are around 240 business days if weekends and holidays are taken off.

If you work 8 hours a day, that's 1,920 hours a year.

If overtime is worked an average of 2 hours per day, +480 hours per year.

If one works 38 years from age 22 to 60 with 2 hours of overtime, the total hours of overtime is +18,240.

If these overtime hours are re-converted to an 8-hour workday, they amount to 2,280 days.

This means that in the 38 years from age 22 to age 60, you will have worked 2,280 overtime days/240 working days = about 9.5 extra years.

This leads to the idea that it would be better to work until age 70, leaving on time without overtime +2 hours and allocating the time not spent working overtime (+9.5 years) to after age 60.

Furthermore, if it took 2 hours round trip to commute to work, living nearby would give you another 9.5 years in 38 years, and you would be better off working until age 80.

However, this conception will be effective only if working can find a positive meaning.

Although each person has his or her own positive feelings, if you have a moderate amount of stress, a little satisfaction, a little growth, time to yourself that you can spend as you please, laughter with family and friends, good physical and mental maintenance, and being able to help others casually while being relied on by those around you, +10 or +20 years is not so bad. I think that 10 years or 20 years is not so bad.

In this day and age when everything is moving so fast, this idea may be too idealistic.

But because it is our company, we use the freedom to aim for our ideals.

April 10, 2023

Think of a problem you've never seen before.

When we encounter a problem, we think about how we can approach the goal in the shortest distance and with the least amount of man-hours, as the phrase "winning formula" suggests.

This metaphor of an equation is one where there are certain rules and formats, and if you put in the parameters, A or B, the answer you seek will just tinkle out.

It can be paraphrased as know-how or methods, which can be copied, distributed, and restored if transplanted to another location.

If we drill down a bit here and consider the winning equation to be strictly an algebraic equation, it is possible that it may be of high order and not always solvable, or that it may not lead to a particular value.

In other words, equations are fine for solvable problems, but what approach other than equations should be taken for problems that cannot be solved in the first place?

Do we decide not to solve it, approximate it to get the optimal solution, look at the distribution probabilistically, change the dimension of the problem by shifting the viewpoint, etc.?

When I run a company, I feel like I can't solve more than 95% of the equation.

To begin with, the major difference from algebraic equations is that the assumptions of the problem change in a variety of ways over time.

On the other hand, you can wait for a specific condition until you are ready to solve it.

So, well, we have to take plenty of time today to figure out what to do about a problem we have not seen before.