Mogic thinks

Brand name glasses

A brand, from its origin, is to be clearly distinguishable when multiple are compared.

In capitalism, this "distinction" is of great significance.

Differentiation is called differentiation if it is a product, and it can be rephrased as your identity if it is a job search or social networking site, but the development is similar.

By the principle that value (popularity) increases as scarcity increases, what is considered valuable will be imitated by others, and the imitators will become more radical in the direction of rarity.

Eventually, both radicalization and imitation will slow down, approach their limits, and become homogeneous.

On the other hand, a product that can be imitated by others and still have parts that cannot be imitated will last for a long time.

That persistence is also known as competitive advantage, core competence, or pseudo-monopoly.

I can get my head around the differences that bring about distinction from others.

However, I think it is very difficult to be aware of this when you are the one concerned.

This is because the differences that we think make us different from others in our industry may look the same from the customer's perspective.

We need to understand that there are things that look the same to our customers that we think are different, and we need to figure out those things in detail.

The first issue is how to understand the customer's perspective itself.

The easiest way to find out the customer's perspective is to take surveys, hold group meetings, or analyze big data.

However, because of the time, effort, and bias inherent in secondary information, I have previously considered a much easier way to address this issue.

It could mean using another company's brand logo for their products, or using a different name, address, university or company name on their own resume.

The point is to see how you feel when you remove a familiar brand.

The clue is whether it looks common or something a little better.

Even if it's small, if you can find a dim light, it's worth it.

It's just a matter of trudging along in the dark.

Future Career Discussion

The first thing I do with students who come to intern or mid-career is to talk about what a career (work history) is.

I'm hoping that we can eventually discuss our respective careers, so I'll start with a framework to serve as a foundation.

The first job change boom at the age of 25-26, the second job change boom at the age of 30-31, the limit of job change theory at the age of 35, the retirement age at the age of 40, the retirement age after the age of 50, the reemployment after the retirement age at the age of 60, and the start of pension at the age of 65.

Thinking about 30 years from now, it is possible that you will start receiving your pension at the age of 75.

If the retirement age was 75, I would have started working at 22 and would have 53 years to live. 50 years ago, the retirement age would have been 55, so it would have been about 33 years, which is a big deviation from the sense of my parents' generation.

In addition, there are other factors that can affect your career, such as your own life events.

Marriage, childbirth, child rearing, educational expenses, caring for parents, one's own retirement, and so on. That's not to say that it will always be there, but it's just a possibility.

In addition, there are the socioeconomic changes brought about by the demographic changes of low birthrate and aging population, and the light and shadows that lie ahead of globalization. There are so many factors that make it difficult.

Then I ask, "So, what do you think? I ask. This may be a bit of a teasing question.

However, I don't think that the questions and answers at that time are meaningful, but I hope that this will be the start of my search for the meaning of work in my life.

Of course, some people take the time to think about the meaning of their work, which is a different development.

We live in a time when it is difficult to move forward into the future.

You can think about it alone, but I think one option is to discuss your career while bumping into various people.

in a crowded room

After I started working remotely, I found myself in empty conference rooms and offices.

It was almost time for the members to come to work, so we decided to recreate the concept for each room before that.

There are seven vacant rooms, so it is challenging.

As we replace the stagnant air, we think about what we can add one by one.

The room with the dark walnut floor has always had a brown table and bookshelf, a black sewing machine and a torso, so I decided to hang an etching of a cat with clean lines to go with it.

The new concept is "a café for people who love making things.

The green and blue carpet tile room was lined with tall plants and vines on all four sides and a white round table in the middle with a frog figurine wearing a gold crown.

The concept is "a room for the King of Frogs (see Grimm's Fairy Tales) that teaches us the value of the unseen. Etc.

It may not make sense to create a concept for every single room as the office reopens.

I thought that the surprise and discovery we made when we opened the room would someday lead to the services we would create.

Because of the difficult social situation, I carry with me a sense of fun that seems to be disappearing.

Switch to a brush pen.

I used to study calligraphy and penmanship for about 10 years, and now I use brush pens and calligraphy pens to do some writing on my mornings off.

I didn't have enough enthusiasm to get out my brush and inkstone, and just writing with a crisp pen was boring, so I shifted a bit and settled on that style.

You may ask, "Why do you write by hand now, when you use a computer everyday? I'm sure you'll say, "Because it's comfortable.

It's not as speedy or accurate as digital typing, and it gets old once and for all, but the time spent writing is comfortable.

With the sound of the brush brush brushing, many things come to mind and then disappear.

Where should I start writing to make my sentences fit better? How do I balance the size of kanji and hiragana? Doesn't this speed make the text blur?

This kanji should stick out like a rocky mountain, this hiragana like flowing water, and I may have failed in this area before.

When I look at what I've written later, I'm somewhat embarrassed to see that it's all jammed up in the front and off-axis.

Perhaps it's because my assumption that I could write better is beaten to death.

Even though it is the same writing, typing digitally and holding a brush seem to have different meanings.

I don't think there is any one that is better than the other, but I think it is important to take a closer look at them, changing hands, changing products.

Self-sufficient salt

One of the choices you have to make in life is how much you want to become more interlocked with society and nature.

In extreme cases, if you stay on an uninhabited island and provide for everything, there is little linkage with society, and the linkage with nature is maximized.

In other words, the actions of others do not directly affect you (indirectly, they can be influenced by international law controls, air pollution, etc.), but they are greatly influenced by wind, rain, plant growth, etc.

Also, when you are making a living by distributing videos on Youtube, the linkage between other Youtubers, viewers and advertisers has increased considerably.

For those of us who live in the modern world, there are many things that can be interlocked, and once you choose one, it is not something that will work forever.

If you buy a mutual fund, you will be strongly linked to the global economy of the stock and bond markets, and if you live in Japan, you will be influenced by the guidelines of the Japanese government.

Even if you choose the freelance profession, you are not free, and it is closely related to the amount of work that is ordered.

If you use your phone all day, the impact on the data storage side is inevitable.

On the other hand, there is a way to intentionally lower the value without being overly conscious of the linkage.

It's called self-sufficiency, and the idea is to increase what we can handle.

From an economic point of view, self-sufficiency is close to a local economy, and a high degree of linkage is strongly associated with globalization.

In familiar terms, it is the difference between what we can do ourselves and what we have to pay others to do for us.

It's not a bad idea to put aside the ever-expanding linkages we don't know about and review what we can do.

I want to feel the buzz.

Due to the risk of coronavirus infection, some of our members work remotely (from home).

About a month after I started remote work, I interviewed people to find out what they wanted most from me.

When I started remote work in the first place, I made preparations based on three axes.

The first is to improve the physical environment, the second is to redesign the work flow, and the third is to take care of the mental health.

At that time, the members of the team predicted what would happen in a month's time, and it was that the physical environment would be almost cleared, but there would still be some issues in the work flow, and the mental state would tend to be depressed.

The results were an extension of my expectations, but I realized that I needed to be more mentally sensitive and complex in my thoughts.

It wasn't just that I was depressed because I was worried about the future, but in addition to vague concerns about the macroeconomic situation and overseas circumstances, I felt as if I was beginning to lack and seek "something" that would help me grow while working comfortably.

Perhaps that's why remote workers are naturally starting to add their own touches to their style.

I tried dressing up in the morning and going to the computer in a kimono, made tai-meshi (sea bream rice) in an earthenware pot for lunch, and thought about things while carrying a young child on my back.

However, that doesn't fill the gap, so I think the expression is vaguely, "I want a sense of buzz.

The sense of buzzing seems to have a variety of connotations, like wanting to watch and copy a bit of the senior staff's work, eavesdrop on a discussion of a new project, show off a bit of your own personal material, or participate in a bit of a spur-of-the-moment cake baking event.

It seems that there are hints of the joy of working, food for growth, and new ideas in the ambiguity of this area, so I'm going to talk about it some more.

I wonder who I'm really competing with.

Capitalism is competition, running a company is competition, and life may be competition too.

It is a competition to achieve something, to compete with someone else in a friendly competition, to play to your strengths and eliminate your weaknesses, and maybe even to fight against yourself.

I would like to delve a little deeper into competition and write about the state of strategy.

If you take out the skeleton of competition, it becomes "multiple players aiming for a goal under a common set of rules to determine superiority or inferiority," with qualification exams being the most obvious example.

The terms and conditions of the test, such as subject, date and time, are fairly known to multiple players, and the score earned on the day of the test determines whether the player passes or fails.

The rules are clear and the goal is clear.

But there is a hidden premise here, and tweaking it reveals a different side to the competition.

That's when you set the rules in advance and eliminate or change the presence of someone ruling after the goal.

In the case of certification exams, this means being on the side of changing the very organization that determines the content of the exams and whether they pass or fail.

In this case, people who change the rules themselves are sometimes called game changers.

This means that the rule change itself becomes a field of competition.

Of course, it is not just a matter of changing the rules, because changing the rules is not a game changer if no one believes in it.

Just by looking at the two types of competition, I feel that the way to survive them, or strategy, is ultimately timing.

When do we fight within the rules that are set, and when do we fight with those who change the rules?

No matter how many great skills you build up, they will be meaningless after the rules change, and right after the rules change, even a simple skill is better than nothing.

Do we sense structural changes that are likely to change the rules and try to symbolize them ahead of time, or do we wait until after the symbolization and quickly imitate it?

As we move our thinking from competition to strategy, we sometimes wonder who we are really competing with.

In the long run, the other companies and people you see are only a small part of the picture.

Crisp, relaxed, and slow.

When I cook, I find it interesting to gradually adjust the rhythm of the various cooking processes.

Some are processed as quickly as possible to keep them fresh, some are left in the refrigerator to soak up the flavor, some are simmered overnight, and some are marinated for six months.

There are short rhythms and long rhythms, and they must be matched perfectly when they are put on the table.

In Japanese food, there is a rhythm of the season of ingredients, and we need to pay attention to it throughout the year. I found a passage that conveys this, so I will write it down.
I'll tell you what.
Suggesting that one soup and one vegetable is enough
http://www.graphicsha.co.jp/detail.html?p=34247

We look forward to the savoriness of the changing seasons.

It is a bit of an exaggeration to say that the Japanese and wild birds are the only ones who don't miss the season ......, but it is not a complete lie when you consider the range, detail and depth of ways to enjoy the season.

This is especially evident in the way we divide the season into "early," "late," and "late," and use our five senses to feel and be aware of the intersecting beginnings and endings of life.

The sensibility of Japanese food, that everything is in accordance with the seasons, reminds us that our bodies are connected to nature in an orderly way, in the form of emotions.
The sensibility of Japanese food reminds us that our bodies are connected to nature in an orderly way.

Running a company is similar in some ways, and the flow of time is completely different for each worker and project.

Time moves at different paces, such as the pace of a new graduate who graduated at the end of the 1990s, the pace of someone who came out of the countryside and has been working in Tokyo for 10 years and raising a child, the pace of a project that has been firmly in place for more than five years, and the pace of launching a new business.

But that is nature, and I think it is management to feel the rhythm of such disparate time.