When our family moved to live in Tokorozawa, which is waaay outside of the central district of Tokyo, I was not expecting much in the way of choices of places to eat out. I am very happy my expectation was wrong. One of my favorite place to eat near my home is Jaipur. The Indian… Continue reading My favorite Indian restaurant
Category: Experience design
“The opposite of sadness is not happiness”
The lesson 2 of Positive Psychology class at the Penn State University World Campus started with these words: Did you know that the opposite of sadness is not happiness? The opposite of sadness is actually...the absence of sadness.What this means is that if you could get rid of everything that is making you sad, you… Continue reading “The opposite of sadness is not happiness”
Marketing And Marketing/Design Research Perspective on Japan as “Aged Society”
For some time, we heard the warning cries from critics and journalists about Japan's rapidly aging population. Well, it has happened. We are now "Aged" society. Japan has more old people who are over 65 than young people who are under 14. Now what? Society is always changing, and it will now change following the… Continue reading Marketing And Marketing/Design Research Perspective on Japan as “Aged Society”
Japanese SNS Activities by Market Sector
About 3 years ago, I found myself doing some SNS based PR work for my friends, and one project lead to another. It has been exciting and fun to be on this new ground, and like everything else before in my life, work came in not as result of formal education, but learning by reading… Continue reading Japanese SNS Activities by Market Sector
Mentoring
Recent posting by Sonic Rim’s Uday Dandavate on Anthrodesign group mail caused me to think about my own experience with search for mentor. (Thank you, Uday!) About 7 years ago, I felt a keen need for a mentor of my own gender. Maybe it was because of “coaching” boom in Japan at that time, and… Continue reading Mentoring
Research conducted in Tokyo now
Product/service development, design research related people like ethnographers, interview moderators, recruiters, coordinators, interpreters, etc. have been keeping busy in Tokyo since latter part of last year, as overseas companies are again very interested in researching Japanese market. After the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake in March 11, 2011, it has of course been an interesting study… Continue reading Research conducted in Tokyo now
Recent Ethnography Research, Particularly of Recruitment Challanges in Japan
Over the past three years, I have become more and more concerned with the difficulty in creating highly exciting learning session for foreign inspiration/innovation seeking customers of both design companies and end user companies. It has a lot to do with recruiting process for people to research. I see following problems in recruiting, some of… Continue reading Recent Ethnography Research, Particularly of Recruitment Challanges in Japan
Love of leather, paper
Designers with capability to create and has in reality created things that are truly wonderful to those designers who can talk about design are like real plants to fake plants. Mike Abelson is one of those real designer. He often talks about about his love of working with leather, and recently, he was telling me… Continue reading Love of leather, paper
Eating Plum Blossom Off The Tree Branch
"Eat it, eat it!" my husband said. So I think for the first time in my life, I ate (or at least acted like I did) a plum blossom off a tree branch. We were having a long walk today along Hayase River. We passed by small factories, vegetable gardens, houses big and small, elementary… Continue reading Eating Plum Blossom Off The Tree Branch
Longing for beautiful, long life, things that fulfills human needs
People who live long lives begin to yearn for things at some point in their lives, things that fulfill the human needs. For us, the aging population in Japan, who had good active lives, the desire for such things grow. We no longer want to clutter our lives with objects that titillate our senses, perhaps… Continue reading Longing for beautiful, long life, things that fulfills human needs
Contemplating Robots: Embedded parts that evoke emotion in humans
It was a happy accident that I found this video. I was looking up Shopsins that made my latest favorite stuff, 5 Year Diary, but ended up at Shopsins that is about food!  I was not expecting for robotics information useful to my research, but here it was! Robots are looking more like embedded… Continue reading Contemplating Robots: Embedded parts that evoke emotion in humans
New Year in Japan
New Year's day is a big holiday in Japan, and traditionally, there are decorations that are associated with the New Year like pine branch, cut bamboos, woven dried rice stalks. I vaguely thought of the decrease in these decorations at homes and cities for the last few years, but this year, I became aware of… Continue reading New Year in Japan
The Residence Inn, Starbucks, McDonald’s
http://www.flickr.com/photos/projectkobo/5262526291/in/photostream/ This was the longest stay for me and my family at a hotel. For 15 nights, 16 days, we stayed at the Residence Inn in Campbell, California. In the past, for this length of stay away from home, I would seek out short term rental of a furnished apartment, but taking past lessons about… Continue reading The Residence Inn, Starbucks, McDonald’s
Researching the aging market in Japan
Japan has had more elderly people aged over 65 than younger people aged 15 and younger since 1997. Above graph shows other countries are following the same trend as in Japan. What does this mean to me? As a 50-year old, it is about ME. And as a researcher, I am tremendously interested in what… Continue reading Researching the aging market in Japan
