 The
first-round judging sessions involving SH-Mobile Laboratory members and Ikuya
Kawasaki, General Manager of System Solution Business Group at Renesas Technology,
took place in late September 2006. Prior to the first-round judging sessions,
on-line judging was conducted by five SH-Mobile Laboratory members and two appropriately
qualified staff from Renesas Technology. The on-line judging awarded points for
six criteria (originality, social relevance, theoretical feasibility, how interesting
the idea was, how strongly one wanted to try the idea, and universality) in eleven
increments (-5 to 5). The average was calculated for each of the criteria, and
the results of the on-line judging collated based on the total of these.
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Background to judging
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| The first-round judging sessions started deliberations
by reviewing the overall competition based on the results of this on-line judging. |
 Professor
Nakajima Essentially, the evaluation was performed by interpreting
the choices for each criterion to get a result of zero or more points. However,
as the territory covered by some of the entries extended beyond mobile phones,
it may have been a good idea to have included a "relevance to mobile phones"
criterion. |
 Mr.
Watanabe I felt that we could have provided more guidance on setting
a date of 2029. Of course, there are problems with specifying things too far,
but some of the entries limited themselves to "solving personal problems"
so perhaps we did not express our intentions as well as we could have when we
put together the competition guidelines. |
 Mr.
Takahashi There seemed to be a large
number of entries that emphasized "style over substance" without much
underlying logic. The marking was rather severe and I think we may have allowed
too much freedom in the various topics. The judging concentrated on originality
and how interesting the idea was. Also, many of the entries consisted of text
only, which was a shame as they may have created a different impression if they
had just included some topical illustrations or similar. |
 Mr.
Tanaka Generally, I gave low marks to
ideas I had seen elsewhere in places like industry associations or corporate vision
plans. |
 Mr.
Maeda My impression was that many of
the entries imagined a world not much different from what we have now. That is,
they didn't have a clear idea of 2029. Lacking a clear world-view, the resulting
level of originality seemed low. I also felt that there was little awareness of
the social roles that mobile phones could aim to fulfill. |
 Mr.
Kawasaki A disappointing aspect of a
majority of the entries is that they limited themselves to addressing the problems
of today. This left me with the impression of a rather narrow range of ideas. |
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Discussions during the judging processes
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| After finishing the overall review of the entries, the
judges discussed their impressions of the submitted ideas, production of second-round
entries, and plans for next time. |
| Mr. Takahashi Product
development at a company can be broadly split into three different approaches:
- A good idea arises in the middle of doing something else
- Make something to achieve a particular goal
- Combine existing things to make something new
All three of these approaches are commonly used in the IT industry, including
in the submitted ideas, but I can't help feeling that these approaches have their
limitations.
For example, equipping mobile phones with cameras has resulted in many people
pointing their phones at accident scenes. But there is nothing special about the
fact that the camera is part of a mobile phone, and this is the same as simply
aiming the lens of a small camera you happen to have at the scene. The approach
of combining two or three things into one certainly has the advantage of convenience,
but I feel it loses the essence of what those things originally were.
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| Mr. Tanaka However,
more fundamental than the problem with the approach taken by the entries was that
the ideas were rather limited in the nature of a student report. |
| Mr. Takahashi Even
if the starting point for an idea is rather simplistic, the end result can be
impressive if it is combined with a world view, but certainly many of the entries
failed to reach that level. It was this feeling of dissatisfaction that prompted
my earlier comment about an "style over substance". |
| Mr. Watanabe Changing
the subject, although this is a competition, should we proceed with judging on
the basis of "encouraging those entries that have some promise". |
| Mr. Maeda For
example, we could ask the entrants whose ideas had potential to resubmit. |
| Mr. Takahashi If
we ask for resubmission, we can, for example, give advice on presentation, but
it would be a problem if we went as far as trying to change the nature of their
entries. Keeping that balance will be difficult, I think. Also, if we are to follow
the format of an ideas competition, I think it may be better just to say "go
back and study some more". |
| Mr. Tanaka One
idea for the theme of the resubmissions could be to make a presentation about
people in 2029. This will encourage entrants to think about how to flesh-out their
ideas. |
| Mr. Watanabe That is
similar to the "backcasting" method used by the SH-Mobile Laboratory
up to last year. If members commit a little bit more to the ideas and guest judges
take the lead role in judging, it will be OK to provide some help with the presentation
of the ideas. |
| Mr. Takahashi Rather
than making changes to the base ideas, this would involve providing support for
those aspects of the entries where "there does not appear to be any underlying
basis for this idea". |
| Mr. Kawasaki Does
this mean, rather than selecting three entries for final judging, we could select
about five of the entered ideas and ask them to produce a second-round entry? |
| Mr. Takahashi Yes,
we would like them to take note of the important points when considering ideas,
not just for the competition, by inviting them to a brainstorming session or workshop
with ourselves. |
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On concluding the judgment
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| After more than two hours of discussion, the SH-Mobile
Laboratory members selected five entries. They are now working with the students
who produced each of the entries to decide how best to proceed with second-round
entries. In the next work sessions, they plan to discuss with the actual students
and support them in preparing their second-round entries. |
