Mr. Maeda I myself am facing a problem in the field of mobile applications. Because this field requires a completely different mindset to PC-based services, it is not one that can be summed up easily. Because what I was doing with my Kanshin Kukan business used CGM, I want to use the same sort of approach in the mobile world.

Although there is no clear definition of what CGM is, it can be thought of as content that is submitted by users in a form that can be reused by other users, with the value of the media being found in how this information is collected and linked together. Unfortunately, it is hard to achieve this type of media concept, to represent this accumulation and inter-linking of information, in a mobile environment where the interface is so small. It is difficult to get across the idea of the information as a multi-dimensional entity that extends in all directions when working through a user interface that is limited to vertical scrolling, and this represents a design challenge. How to solve this problem is the issue I currently face.

One key consideration is how to generate the motivation that makes users want to follow the chain of information that lies behind the particular item of information they see in front of them, perhaps by showing links between information that are rather unexpected but that the user can still relate to, a little like the concept of serendipity.

Although users start by looking at a particular item of information, the more they look at such items the more they will come to see the overall chain of information and their understanding of this structure will add to the interest they have in the information, leading to a desire to have their own role to play in this structure, that is, to feel that "the structure will become more meaningful if I contribute to it". This, I believe, is how worthwhile CGM can emerge.

It can be very unclear whether the information and structure resulting from CGM are public or private, and although there are some examples of CGM where this ambiguity has been eliminated, there are others for which "this ambiguity is part of their fascination". There is no ambiguity with Wikipedia, for example, which emphasizes its "public benefit" role and adopts the practice of allowing anyone to edit content. Although Kanshin Kukan involves the collection and linking together of private information, overall this collection and linking together of information seems to have a commonality to it.

I had a conversation with Koichiro Eto on the day after our last meeting which struck me as a pleasant coincidence following as it did Mr. Tanaka's comments on a similar topic about the idea of "linking together". For example, we were talking about creativity and about the interesting way that things that seem to be quite different at first glance can have unusual relationships when looked at from a particular perspective that makes you think "ah, I see it now".
I think the internet still lacks a service that provides these perspectives, that shows how "things are different but related". I think there is an opening to fill in this lack of a net service that, in contrast to a very accurate search engine, instead returns "links" that people find more stimulating.

One idea that I constantly refer to when thinking about this topic is that of "flow" put forward by the sociologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who also happened to belong to a mountain climbing club, attempted to analyze logically what it is we find enjoyable in activities like mountain climbing and games. He thinks about his concept of flow in the following way. Using the difficulty of mountain climbing as an example, if I were to attempt to climb Mt Everest, all I would succeed in doing would be to put my life in danger and I would not enjoy the experience at all. On the other hand, someone who has been mountain climbing from their time as a university student, for example, would likely enjoy the climb. In other words, how much each person enjoys something depends on their level of experience. Similarly, in chess, players do not enjoy the game unless playing against someone with a similar or slightly higher level of ability. Playing against someone who is very good or very poor does not provide any sense of achievement. The term 'flow" is used to express that feeling of enjoyment.

Let's look at this using Kanshin Kukan as an example. If perspectives and links or other interrelationships are too obvious, they will be boring. If something is shown using "iPod links" for the "iPod" itself, this is too obvious and not interesting. On the other hand, relationship information such as between "iPod" and "a case from a leather manufacturer has become available" has value and people will be interested.
The same applies in real communications. People who talk about things that everyone already knows are not seen as being very interesting people. You don't feel any flow in conversations like that.
That is, you only feel flow when you discover something, such as thinking "ah, so this is what links them together", and communication with people who can generate this flow is enjoyable.

I believe that the experience of flow that occurs during this sort of communication is also occurring in CGM such as Kanshin Kukan.
Working out how to create this so as to sustain this flow is an important issue in providing CGM.
One thing that I believe is key to achieving flow relates to the units of information used. I suspect that the volume of information, what you could describe as a nugget of information, and how it is presented, whether it is stock information or whether it is dynamic, whether it can be reused, and so on, is different on mobile devices than on PCs for example. Finding suitable answers to this problem, considering how best to present information, is the topic I am currently working on.

Mr. Maeda Although I was thinking in terms of a thought experiment rather than an implementation with commercial potential, the way public and private ownership is mixed is interesting.
If you were building a town and the city council insisted that it was built in accordance with strict plans, I don't think I would find it very interesting. On the other hand, if each of the people who live there built whatever they wanted, I think the resulting town would be a mess. Like some sort of black market.
Building a consensus for this sort of framework is what creates public consciousness. On the other hand, building a town in which you would want to live also requires some level of private ownership, what you could call initiative. I think the problem of how best to participate in making the town interesting is part of this question of public vs. private.
For example, the idea of "lets make a great street" is not something you put on paper and post in the street, rather it is a joint consensus between the people involved. The interesting question is how will personal initiative manifest itself in such a situation.

Mr. Maeda Looking at it in terms of time, if for example you and I get so involved in this discussion today that we agree to continue at another time, this still constitutes communication. Alternatively, if we set aside a particular time each week to debate the topic, and if say Mr. Watanabe joins us, then this activity could now be said to have become community.

Like the flow concept referred to earlier, throwing a ball back and forth playing catch, for example, is communication, but if we threw the ball to Mr. Watanabe and he just held on to it, at that point the communication would stop. If, however, he kept hold of the ball because he had "just stopped to think for a moment", then the communication would resume from the moment he next threw back the ball. This sense of repetition is certainly part of "flow".

In a community like Kanshin Kukan, if, for example, you pass the ball to a particular community and the ball is not returned, the range of people extend from those who would wait two days for a response to those who would give up unless a response came back immediately. People who want an instant response see the Mixi backtracking function as important. Other people, though, dislike such intrusive communication.
I think that if communication has a certain level of continuity and some consistency of topic, then it can be said to have become community.

Mr. Watanabe There is a book called "Shared Minds" written by Michael Schrage. Despite being written about fifteen or sixteen years ago, I think this book is the best ever written on collaboration and it makes the point that "collaboration is a shared process of creation".
The conditions he sets down for collaboration, including that "communication sometimes but not always provides the impetus for collaboration" and "sharing a common objective is an essential part of collaboration" are similar to what we talked about earlier with "flow". He also discusses definitions like "a certain compatibility of levels is required" and "a place where sharing and work can take place is essential" and describes how these provide the design for a collaborative environment.

For example, there are cases when collaboration takes place on a railway platform, and cases when it does not occur in a well-equipped meeting room. While I think this depends on what attributes the people involved have that add to the collaborative process, in the case of collaboration via mobile phone or other portable device, providing the right context is a difficult interface issue. Thinking in terms of the earlier definitions, this is an example of being "unable to share the process" and although phones can be very practical for communication, it is also the case that realizing collaboration is difficult. In the use of e-mail, it is possible to provide a certain level of context for mail on a PC but this is not the case on a mobile phone.
This is what has lead me to raise the problem of how mobile technology can be improved to allow such collaboration to take place.

Mr. Takahashi I think this is something we talked about previously, about the things that we designers put into a design, and the things that others add.
Taking grammar as an example, there is the expression "zenzen oishii" (absolutely delicious). Although in correct grammatical usage, the word "zenzen" must be followed by a negative, it now no longer seems odd if it is followed by a positive expression instead. This change in use captured my interest and made me wonder how it could have happened. On investigating what could be found out about it, it turned out that cartoonists before and during the war used the expression in manga (comic books). That is, the humor was created by a discontinuity from our shared grammar when the expectation that "zenzen" would be followed by a negative is broken in the next frame when in fact the opposite occurs. It has now reached a point where continued use of the expression means that the original shared grammar no longer applies. I also understand that the word "atarashii" (new) was originally pronounced "aratashii", but that, like young people's slang, people felt that "this way sounds better" and so use of "atarashii" spread.

It is also in the nature of young people's sensibilities, I think, to go against the prevailing format, this being one example. In the case of gal-go and so on, I understand that it has been through several generations of changes and there is a subtle element of "I want to fit in while making myself different", so as a result there are changes away from the format of previous generations.

Unlike the terms and expressions that are unique to particular industries, the knowledge of which makes you feel that you are "part of this industry", my impression of gal-go is that it has the separate aspects of "I want to be different from other people" and "but I still want to fit in", which are linked together in a way that is a little difficult to understand. Because I can't see the connection it is hard for me to make something aimed at women.

Mr. Takahashi It is fine for people who understand how to combine sources and materials to reach their own conclusions.
However, copy-and-paste leaves responsibilities unclear. Although I think the Heibonsha Encyclopedia did great work, and while I think we have reached a wonderful time when information can be published and shared via the internet in the public domain, I still have fears about material in the public domain for which nobody can be held accountable. Its like the foundation for discussion has been removed, whereas in old fashioned encyclopedias the authors take on the responsibility that comes with having their names published alongside.

I feel that this idea has at some point become very diluted and, with these things being taken for granted in discussions, it has become very common these days for these to proceed without any verification of assumptions.

Mr. Maeda In the past, having a mobile phone was seen as a status symbol amongst the people who had them, a way of saying "look how busy I am", but as they became more common having one was no longer enough to gain entry into the community of people who had that status.
Similarly, before the internet spread as widely as it now has, using it conveyed the image of being a researcher or someone like that.
It is quite possible that with Mixi too, it will have a different role for the people who used it first and those who will use it in the future.
Also, the anonymity factor represents another layer that is different to this "flattening".

For example, there are people known as alpha-bloggers who can be seen as an example of people who have recognition but who still retain their anonymity. Although they started their blog under a pseudonym, it became popular and made them famous. Can they be said to have retained their anonymity? They may have been anonymous to begin with but the problem is that this pseudonym has come to be perceived by other people as a separate entity. An ordinary person might just get tired but there are many people in show business who never get sick of this sort of thing.