SANPELLEGRINO / SANPELLEGORINO

I just drank it in a cafe. I thought the name was “sanpelleOrino”, but it was actually “sanpelleGrino”. The shape of “G” is a bit special and similar to “O”, so I just misjudged.

http://www.sanpellegrino.com/index.html

Maybe it is not unusual drink, but since I have never seen it in Japan, it is exotic for me and tastes better than other sparkling fruit drink. It is not so strongly carbonated, so it feels subtle and sensitive.

How to motivate myself?

How to motivate yourself?

This is one of my largest problems I have now. I have to find a work placement for my next academic year, but actually I’ve just sent my CV to few companies.

My methods of motivating myself are:
1. Change the place/ mood
2. Don’t think too much

Basically my character tends to be too careful about anything, so when I need to take some action, I try to think it is not a big thing if I make a mistake. However, they don’t work well so far. Maybe now is the time to learn a new way to solve the problem.

Fujita vs. Thompson

I bumped into a video of MMA.
This is really exiting and shows the lesson that you should never give up.

Fujita used to be one of few heavy-weight Japanese MMA fighters who could compete with fighters of other countries. I don’t know who’s the next generation.

Designers don't only draw anymore

I had an opportunity to talk with a director of a design consultancy. My question was how people who have business background can contribute in the agency, and he explained there are so many tasks designers are not good at. However, my impression from his answer is that designers are not just involved in drawing anymore. They need to think about experience of users and it is also true in terms of branding. Some other classmates are interested in branding, so they ask him about branding, then he told us that no one talk about branding itself, but experience.

Reflection in a hard time

I haven’t written diary for a long time again. Right after the last post, something happened personally and everything bad suddenly appeared. Now must be a good time to reflect who I am and what I have done and what my value is and so on.

The address of Steve Jobs in the graduation ceremony of Stanford University is quite inspiring for me. It might mean that my life is not coherent, but I need to believe myself or something driving me. I am who I am. I am not anything else. In a bad time, everything looks dark, but in a sense you can see everything clearly. In daily life, I might have wanted not to see what is inconvenient for me, but now I need to face it. I am who I am. I am not anything else. I can have some illusion about myself easily, friends, fun time...but I cannot be anything else but me. I can hide it, but I cannot escape from who I am.

Struggling in internship

Recently I haven’t kept diary not because I’ve been very busy…
I just might have lost my motivation to keep it because basically keeping diary was for studying English and I started to feel some question it would be effective, but now I’ve begun to feel it would be useful again.

To reflect daily life is really important sometimes.
Recently I’ve felt as if I got lost and my goal is a bit vague now.
I’ve taken a place as an intern, but now I feel it is just working for free.
In the first place, I thought I could learn how to work in the UK, but actually my work is just maintaining the website. I don’t need to learn about it and it has nothing to do with my career. I expected I could get some experience of marketing and promotion work in this internship, but actually it is different from my expectation and I can’t realize that I learn something. What makes me keep going is that if I quit it now I learn nothing.
If I think positively, actually I’ve learned some things.

-Some artists don’t have basic IT skills to promote themselves and there are some opportunities.
-How the website is maintained.
-Basic strategy and structure of the company.

Anyway I should ask my boss a lot of questions. I still cannot see how great he is, but he must have some strong advantage. Any crowd has silver lining.

Communication is the most important thing to solve problems, I suppose. It is my motto at least.

This case is included in what I usually have some trouble. I think sometimes I don’t see the goal or purpose when I do something. Sometimes it’s ok because I can try new things quickly, but in most cases it turns out to be wasting time. Any experience could be a good experience if I can turn it into some lessons.

slumdog millionaire

That’s a stunning film!
It’s like city of god, which is a Brazilian film, but you can feel much happier after seeing it.
Although I’m not sure how real this film is, but you can see lives of some people are very hard and how lucky you are.
Sometimes seeing film makes me upset, because there are many people who struggle to live over there, but how is my life? It’s quite easy and nowhere near difficulty.
I might be just happy, and I should be satisfied.
In a sense, you cannot measure our happiness objectively. Anything might be unmeasurable.
The modern age is long gone, which had a “big story”, but I still can’t adjust the reality. I still want some objective answer for life. Personal feeling is much more important now. Thinking objectively is still important, but it’s not enough.

We need passion, feeling and emotion. Sometimes life suddenly becomes quite bright, but on the other hand, life also suddenly becomes dark.
Life could be perception.

meeting, meeting

We have a presentation this week, so in order to prepare for it we’ve been having a meeting and a meeting. Sometimes I feel my brain is too slow in English. I can’t understand something and make my opinion at the same time, but the other members can. Anyway it is a good exercise for me to think in English.
My bad habit is that I can’t feel motivation right before deadline whatever it is, but how can I change it? I usually try to take advantage of the tendency, but sometimes it’s too late. Making priority for my activity is very important. I should try it more systematically.

Recently I’ve been reading Clayton Christensen’s “Innovator’s Dilemma” and Ronald Norman’s “The invisible Computer”. The former is more theoretical, so maybe it’s easier to get the point, but the latter is more experiential and it also tries to include the theory of Geoffrey Moore’s “Crossing the chasm”, so some points are confusing.

Christmas 2008!!

Christmas of this year has just passed. For Japanese, Christmas is a event for couples, so the mood is a bit different to the western style. In London, it’s for family, so every public transport stops. I’ve got no family in London, so I had nothing to do on Christmas, but some friends of mine invited me to their family party, so I joined it. They were really fantastic time. I’ve almost lost family, so the feeling of family is quite precious, and it reminds me of there being happiness of family.

I hadn’t drunk mulled wine, which is sweet and hot wine, in Tokyo, but now it’s one of my favourite drinks. Mince pie is a traditional dessert for Christmas, and it’s also good. The content in mince pies is called mince meat, but it’s actually not meat but chunks of fruit.

I stayed overnight at my friend’s place and watched some films. One of them was called “Alien Raiders”, which seems to be a low budget film, but it was interesting maybe because I’d expected just a little. Another one was “The kiss of Dragon”, staring Jet Lee, and why we chose the film to see is to know how different the behaviours of western guys and Asian guys are in films. Western guys usually get some girls laid even though they are Asian girls, but Asian guys hardly do that!!! It’s interesting because it might be cultural difference, and sort of manipulation of impressions of cultural appearances. The third one was “The shepherd”. The main actor is Jan-Claude Van Damme, whom I haven’t seen for ages!! He got older, but his action was still high quality. The quality of the film itself was… I shouldn’t say anything.

virtual meeting

We had a kind of virtual meeting for our presentation. Each member put some ideas on BBS in our social networking site. We use ning.com for creating our website for collaborative work.

Basically I don’t want to rely on some virtual meeting technology, because sometimes the communication is too fragile and not productive, but this time should work well, but no one knows until next “real” meeting.

A friend of mine went to a seafood market in London, and bought and brought a big piece of salmon and cod to our dinner. The salmon was really nice, quite tasty and contain a lot of fat, which made salmon feeling softer. I never thought I could eat such nice row fish, but actually it was as good as in Japan if not better. The U.K. is also island and a bit cold so it might be not so difficult to catch good fish.

We had a lot of topics to talk, such as our career, love and so on. A friend of mine told us we should strongly pursue what you want to be in the future even if you have to choose very dirty way in order to achieve it. I’m not sure I can do it if I’m in such a kind of situation, but basically I agree with his opnion.

One of those days and Ken Ribinson

I went to university a bit too early yesterday. When I arrived, the building was closed because the electricity had something wrong. The staff told the students there to come back around twelve, so I texted my classmates about that, and I went to a café near my college to kill time.

I chose a bad café since they put the message of “Free wifi” and actually it had but the quality wasn’t good. Then my classmates called me and told that the college was open now and I could come back now. It was almost the starting time of our class. When I went to our studio, there were few classmates and they told the class was cancelled because there were too few people. On top of that, the afternoon session was also cancelled because the morning was cancelled. I thought I shouldn’t have texted and felt guilty. It was meant to be good, but it turned out the bad result. Sometimes quick responses are good, but sometimes not.

Maybe, yesterday was one of those days. I planned to go to a short film event, but something urgent came up for a friend of mine and she suddenly became unable to make it. I asked some other friends of mine but unfortunately they were busy, so I decided not to go. We had had an English class but the college was closed earlier because of the trouble of electricity. Finally I moved to other campus and kept studying.

We usually have a presentation for sort of cultural knowledge sharing every week. The next theme is “DIY”, so I gathered some images of “Okonomiyaki”. Okonomiyaki is a kind of Japanese hot cakes. The thing is that when you go to an Okonomiyaki restaurant, you have to cook it yourself. I thought it was not special, but when I saw “Lost in Translation” I realised that it was a bit wired for foreigners. I hope it would be a good example of Japanese DIY…

One of classmates recommended me to see the following video of Sir Ken Robinson:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
“Creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it at the same status.”
It was really interesting. I think creativity is really important in education in especially developed countries to empower their economy and quality of life. The problem is education for creativity is very difficult and not formulated yet. It might be quite smart, and it might be quite humorous. At least, this video was really funny, but I couldn’t listen to his jokes because of my English skills. Improving my English listening skill is a really big problem for me. I became a bit concerned, so I accessed BBC learning English pages and listened to some audio contents. The handy guide of Business Gurus was interesting:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/work/handy/
Maybe reading their books are very difficult and takes ages, but if you just know the points of them, this contents should be really useful.

Chelsea vs Arsenal

Chelsea lost yesterday… The game itself wasn’t so good. The score was 2-1, but the one of Chelsea was own goal.
I went to Sports pub with a friend of mine and watched it together. He likes Arsenal. The first half was no so bad, because Chelsea got the first goal and finished it with 1-0, but actually Arsenal mostly controlled the game.

During the half time, we went to McDonald’s and ate fried chickens and potato. For the promotion of “Madagascar 2”, if you buy some specific set, you can get a figure of the characters. A friend of mine wanted to get it for his girlfriend, so he ordered it. He got the same one which they had got already, so he asked the staff to change it… he’s a really nice boyfriend.

The figure was made in China. Everything comes from China now. The figure was a hippo, the quality wasn’t so bad, and if you shake it, it speaks something. I was a bit surprised, because when I was a kid, it never spoke. I wondered how effective this kind of promotion is. There must be a kind of synergy, so it should be difficult to measure it.

Then we were back to the café and started to watch the match again. The second half was really bad for Chelsea. Van Persie got two goals and the game was turned back. I hoped that Chelsea would turn back again but it didn’t happen. After the match, many customers left the bar.

This kind of bars is really interesting, because they serve not only food but also a sort of mood. They might be able to sell some sports accessories or something. It’s not stadium but it proposes similar mood. I think you can appropriate this kind of services to other services. Sports might be special, because for sports, whether it is live or not is really important, but on the other hand, whether it is in Stadium or not is sometimes not important. Sharing the moment of victories on time is one of the important factors to enjoy sports. It should be special for sports. Films and theatre are a bit different. Theatre might be a bit similar, because if you watch it with some recorded media, you might feel the value is lower. You might be not so excited. The different point of Sports and theatre is the importance of places and time. For sports, in my opinion, time is more important, but the theatre is not only time but also places are important. Of course, watching a match in stadium is the best experience, but sharing the moment of the game would be more important, but for theatre you should be in theatre if you really enjoy it. The level of expansion of experience for the content are different and it should be a key factor to how to take advantage of it.

meeting and x factor

We had a meeting about our project.
Our member is usually six, but yesterday was just four, so it wasn’t difficult as usual.
I’m not sure which is better, because conflictions in meetings would be one of learning processes, but honestly it wasn’t so stressful, so that’s all right.

Making logic for our argument itself might be not so difficult, but how to show the evidence should be really difficult. That is always the main problem of ours in my opinion. I should have had some clear image where we go to before our meeting, but I always failed. I should have prepared some suggestions and direction in order to make our meeting meaningful. For the next time, I should use more time for coming up with some idea for how to organize and lead our group.

Then, I moved to Top shop with a friend of mine, because his girlfriend waited there. In topshop, there were a lot of people and staying there was a little bit stressful. Girls really love shopping. His girlfriend and a friend of hers hadn’t finished shopping, so we went to a book shop to kill a bit time. I looked for a book for my research but I couldn’t find it. I might be ought to ask the staff, but I thought if I asked them I couldn’t refuse to buy it, so I didn’t. The shelf of some book stores are really mess and it’s very hard to find books I want. In Japan, some big book shop has sort of searching machine. I didn’t think it was special, but now I realised it was really useful.

I gave up finding the book I needed and started to read a book about leadership. Recently I’ve really realised how important leadership is. Maybe I’m not cut out for a man who has strong leadership skill, so that’s why I adore becoming such a kind of person. Anyway I have to have some confidence about myself, it should be really difficult, but I have to try until I succeed.

During walking around with a friend of mine, we bumped into other classmate. He had planned to have dinner in China town, so we joined it. I really love ho-fun, which is a kind of rice noodles, so I ordered it as usual. That restaurant was recommended by the friend, so taste was all right, but the behaviour of the waitress was not so good. I don’t mean to complain about it but I couldn’t help thinking if I own some restaurant, I have to really care about the behaviour of the staff, because it might have a big impact on customer experience and satisfaction.

When I arrived at home, X factor was just on air. I really like Alexandra and Diana. They must be finalists. Alexandra has the best singing skill, and Diana is really charismatic. I can’t choose which is better, because their types are slightly different to each other.

Apple community

Yesterday, I went to Apple store for our research.
I tried to feel the mood, feeling and emotion, to see how customers behave. Basically the space was really energetic. Many customers circulated in the store. The customers are very various, from kids to elderly people. Among them, there two ladies, who it seems to me that they were looking for new computer for the mother, maybe she was between 60 and 70 years old.
I thought it was one of the good aspects of consumption. The activity produces some opportunities for families to communicate.

They also have lectures for their products. It looks like sort of “Apple community”. People gather with people who are interested in the same thing. Apple becomes a kind of hub to connect people. There is a community. It is also another advantage of consumption. Mutual experiences to use some particular products make us feel connected, and I think some companies try to take advantage of it.

The experience in Apple store was really comfortable, then I moved to Nokia store. The feeling was totally different. Basically there were few customers, it was not fair to compare it with Apple store directly, but the approach to customers seemed to be different to Apple as well. Their approach looked more technological and more “cool”. They seemed to want to show how cool they are. In a way, the approach might be really good, but my feeling in the store was a bit isolated.

Maybe the positions of Apple and Nokia are different. Nokia would want to be a pioneer of mobile phone technologies, but Apple might not care about it. Instead of that, it seems to me that Apple takes care about customer experiences. Both would be advantages of consumption, but the types are a bit different.

After that, I moved to college and checked some commercials of international brand companies. As I had seen in the store, Nokia’s approach was also kind of based on “coolness”. When it comes to Apple, they used both way. The commercial of iPod was really experience-oriented, maybe because the technology was not so special, but that of iPhone looked more technological, but based on experience-oriented.

I thought I would stay college as long as possible, but I felt a bit tired, so I went home earlier than I thought, but it might’ve been better to stay more, because in my room usually I’m too relaxed to study. I’m really not sure which is better to study at college for a long time or to change the place to study. Concentration should be important for learning, so I must put myself in a place where I can keep my concentration anyway.

Finally I watched “Shameless” to get used to English conversation in natural speed. It was the final episode of the first season. Its characters are basically crazy, but in the end it became happy ending, so my feeling was really good after seeing it.

the research of major brands

I applied for a part-time job. I’m looking forward to receiving the reply.

Our project is about “consumption” so we’ve decided to research major brands, such as Coca Cola. According to Interbrand, Coca Cola is the number one global brand. I checked Wikipedia, and their annual review. It’s crystal clear that they want to exploit the message of the global community through the experience of drinking Coke. It’s really interesting, because usually kind of globalisation is a negative discourse. The image is a bit boring and “Americanisation” and losing characters, but in a way it connects the world and promotes to understand each other and feel empathy. I think it is a positive side of globalisation and global companies.

Then, I saw a girl, who worked in art sector in Japan. She said the work was really hard because the budget was really limited. What she had to first was to build the connections with the politicians to keep the budget for art. He kept the work one way or another, but the budget for art was gradually lower and lower, then finally nothing, so she decided to quit the job. Her opinion about art market in Japan was negative, but my opinion was not so negative, so I told her my opinion and sort of “passion” to change the market, but only to confirm that she didn’t agree with it and realise that I might be just naïve.
Actually, however, I felt some opportunities in the art market, because the basement is so weak and there might be chances for new comers. Anyway I have to research the art market in Japan if I really want to join the market, and try and find what I can do and what my opportunity is.

Finally, I moved to White chapel to join a party of my classmates. I was really tired, so I didn’t feel up to going the party, but the party was a kind of graduation party of BA course of my classmates, so I thought I could see someone really interesting, but there was no classmates anymore, because it might have been too late. I should’ve finished the meeting with the girl earlier, but her story was really interesting and I couldn’t stop it. It would be better if I can see her again and talk about art or something with other friends. Some other friends of mine also have working experience in art sector in Japan, so they might come up with something from their conversation. It must be exciting time. That’ll be sort of synergy. Connecting people is really exciting, because there’ll be something more than “1 + 1 = 2”. 1+1 might be 3, 4 or something very interesting.

I remember another thing she said. She said people who can control budget for art in Japan were too conservative to understand the value of art policies. I agree with it, but I think we shouldn’t wait for it to change.

Presentation

I had a presentation yesterday, but I didn't have time ehough to prepare it well, so the quality is not as good as usual.

Maybe the point to be better is:
1. a story that connects each slides.
2. panchline.

This presentation is just for a couple of minutes, so not so difficult, but for learning something from actvity I should do hardwork for it.
I think it's right for everything. When you do something, you should be always serious, otherwise it will be wasting time.

Stay foolish, stay hungry. It's good words.

Philosophy for art and life

I went to my overseas study agency, and saw my agent. There were other students and he told us about Yoji Yamamoto and Issei Miyake. In his opinion, Yoji Yamamoto is like a cult religion. When he went to his studio in Paris, every staff looked like him. On the other hand, Issei Miyake is quite normal, and he has a philosophy of his works.

Recently I have felt philosophy is important for not only art but also life itself. I think people who have their philosophy are attractive, but actually it is difficult to answer the question of what your philosophy is.

My philosophy is like the following:
I think communication is really important for peaceful life. Most of troubles are caused by miscommunication or non communication.
You must have passion to achieve some dreams in your life, otherwise you lose your value to live. Just living to live is the same as death.

I must deepen them for all of my life.

Enrollment

Today was my enrolment day for my course. I went to school almost on time, but already there were a lot of people. Firstly the staff gave me a form for some information which I should fill in. After I finished the form, I moved to another room to get line up. The line was too long, so I had to wait for almost one hour.

I had already seen some classmates in my next course and I saw her there. We had a mutual friend, but she failed her English test, so it’s not sure she could enter our course. The time for queuing was really long but the process of enrolment itself was quick. I just showed my passport, English qualification, school qualification and receipt for the tuition fee. The process should go online. It must be quicker and easier.

Dragons’ den

One guy was beat by the dragons, but one dragon told the others he should be educated not be beat, but another said his plan was dangerous and we should make him give it up or change his mind. In my opinion, both of them grasp the main points. Anyway I think it must not be just only the complacence of dragons.

My saddle has been stolen

I parked my bicycle in front of the flat of a friend of mine, then my saddle had gone when I went there to buy some more alcohol.
There had been no accident with my bicycle except for puncture, so I thought the security of London was not so poor and got careless.
What was the thief going to do with my saddle? Sell it or use it? Anyway I have to ride my bicycle out of the saddle for a while…