From my memory’s beginning, I had been an avid reader. When I was a kid, the ultimate adventure and pleasure would be a weekend trip to a bookstore. My aunts would let me freely roam the store, browsing different subject shelves for a few hours until I was either exhausted or my hands full with books. We would checkout and I would carry the books back like a homesteader carrying firewood from the forest....
Winter is a wonderful time to slow down, savor our learnt experiences this year and recap what went well and what we should adjust next year. Like Kari Leibowitz stated in How to Winter, the dark cold season can be enjoyed and utilized with the right mindset. I heed Kari’s advice and recollect the gems I collected in 2023 to align myself in the right direction this year. In 2023, I continued my learning journey both professional and personally....
In today’s competitive business landscape, companies often focus their innovative power on creating new products or technologies, but forget to prioritize the most important aspect: creating unique value for their customers. I recently read a book キーエンス 高付加価値経営の論理 on Keyence’s value-added approach and how it contributes to its high profit margin....
People often have stereotype or fantasy that artists receive their inspiration from high above, as if the “drop of gift” appear all of a sudden. Wouldn’t it be eye-opening if professionals reveal how that process actually works? In fact, numerous books have been written by artists to disprove the “muse” myth, showing that it is nothing romantic but just consist of routine hard work. In this blog post, I’ll talk about what unites novelist Murakami Haruki, advertising legend James Webb Young and choreographer Twyla Tharp in the creation process....
The advent of mobile phone makes consuming news an anytime, anywhere habit. With it comes anxiety and other mental health issues induced by nonstop consumption of negative content. We’re going to look into the reasons driving us to overdose on negative content, despite knowing for sure that it feels unpleasant. Then we’ll examine some coping strategies to stay informed while maintaining our composure. why do we consume negative content? We are programmed by our genes to be more attentive to negativity....
Minimalist living, especially in big cities like Tokyo, has always fascinated me. A few years ago, I rented a 25 square meter Airbnb condo in Tokyo for a few weeks and attempted to live as much like a local as possible. I went to local supermarkets to buy and cook my own meals everyday, strolled around the neighboorhood to patronize the smallest shops, and commuted by packed trains to the...
2023 is coming to a close and in the same tradition, I decided to tally my book reviews. This year presented me with a big challenge. I was diagnosed with a serious illness and had to go through treatment and surgery for half of the year. This period was like a trekking expedition when I had a lot of solo time during pain and suffering to ponder and self-reflect. My...
We always hear the catchy phrase you are what you think, but is this true? Recent reading of neuroscience and psychology books taught me that our brain is not trustworthy, because thinking can be unreliable due to its automatic (thus uncontrollable) mechanism. We are easily derailed by cognitive bias, and allow our contrived stories/thoughts to create negative experiences. In this post, we will see how our brain’s wirings can trip us, and how mindfulness can mitigate....
My professional interest is in applying recommenders to travel planning and reservation. So it is natural that I’ll keep up with books on both technical implementation and those that dissect the cultural influences of recommendation systems. After finishing the book Computing Taste, which charted the change of recommendation systems in the music/movie industry, I want to extend what was discussed in the book to changes in software development paradigm, as well as societal views on mistakes or criteria for finished products....
Try envisioning design as water. Water is indispensable to human life, connecting us to our environments in visible and invisible ways. It can cause disasters like tsunamis (and so can design when it is uncalled for or when it tries to add nonexistent value), but it can also materialize as a rainbow, radiant in the light of the sun. Just as water makes every phenomenon possible, design is an essential component of every human endeavor....