Editor-in-Chief Hayashi of Daily Portal Z advocates: "From now on, we must always consider how things look online."

This project features Editor-in-Chief Hayashi of Daily Portal Z proposing ideas as a growth hacker (※1) for projects within the Open Innovation Lab (InnoLab), the research and development organization of Dentsu Inc. International Information Services (ISID). This fourth installment marks the first update in about a year. Originally planned as "monthly updates for a total of 6 installments," the first installment began with the statement, "If it ends midway, please assume something happened..." However, since the fourth installment is being updated after a year, please assume nothing happened.

And I'm Masanori Sumi, joining as the scribe starting this installment. I usually do a variety of things like writing, video production, design, and comedy. I've known Hayashi-san for a long time. Hayashi-san's proposals often have a quirky, offbeat quality – sometimes they seem playful but are serious, sometimes serious but playful, and sometimes just plain playful. I see my role as identifying the type of pitch Hayashi-san is throwing and conveying that to everyone. So, starting this time, I'll be reporting on Hayashi-san's presentations by adding annotations here and there.

The topic for the 4th session is a project called " DigSports." Hayashi will present growth hacking proposals to Kazuhisa Nozaki and Motoki Abe from Inolab.

※1 "Growth Hacker": Someone who accelerates the growth of products or services using novel approaches. At the start of this presentation, Hayashi remarked, "After a year, you don't hear 'growth hack' anymore, do you?" Starting next time, the term "growth hack" might disappear from this series.

To eliminate barriers to participation. Slippery slopes, excuses, invisible barriers

 

Hayashi: I thought it was over.

Abe: Sorry, I've been preoccupied with the Namahage project. Regarding "DigSports," which I'd like to propose to Hayashi-san this time, development lead Nozaki will explain.

Nozaki: DigSports is a project born from the concept of "discovering what children can do." It's fundamentally a system that uses IT to measure the physical fitness tests recommended by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). It employs optical sensors to measure sports movements. By introducing IT, we aimed to create a system that can automatically and accurately measure test results even without someone knowledgeable about physical fitness testing.

Hayashi: I had the chance to experience it myself recently. I also saw what Mr. Sumi is doing now (※2), so I have a good grasp of what it entails. With that background, I'd like to discuss it again after a year.

Hayashi: Over the past year, I made a box that makes your face look big (※3) and took it overseas. Privately, I started jogging. Things were gradually moving in a more straightforward direction. And today's materials are all hand-drawn.

Abe: Why hand-drawn slides?

Hayashi: Since there are a lot of illustrations, I thought it'd be better to match everything to the shaky lines of the illustrations. So now it's a document that's hard to revise (laughs). Anyway, I broke it down into three parts like this.

Hayashi: First, the initial plot. I came up with three ways to make people "want to participate." Basically, I tend to think from the perspective of someone who can't do sports.

Hayashi: The first is simply increasing the physical fun factor, that indescribable fun.

Hayashi: Like making the floor slippery (*4). You know, like those Chinese restaurants with slippery floors? That's fun, right?

Abe: It is fun, though.

Hayashi: Then there's wristbands and sound effects. At overseas maker fairs, kids always gravitate toward things that glow. Adding a "Shakin!" sound makes it even catchier.

Abe: They're drawn to things that glow, like insects.

Hayashi: The other day when I tried DigSports, hearing someone say, "Oh, nice score!" made me happy. That kind of MC is really important. Even if it wasn't a great score at all, you could feel the person's thoughtfulness in saying it. Adding that kind of easily understandable fun is crucial on-site.

Abe: True. Sports days have broadcasts too. "Red team, fast!" and such.

Hayashi: The workout app I use (※5) also encourages me with things like "Trust yourself!" when my workouts take too long.

Nozaki: I see, so you actually enjoy being told that by a machine.

Hayashi: Well, actually, hearing it from a machine kinda bugs me (laughs).

Hayashi: I don't hate sports anymore these days, but as someone who used to be bad at and hated sports, I think having other goals is good. Not everyone wants to boost their Nike Run numbers. Like, "My goal is just to eat udon." It gives participants an excuse, sort of.

Abe: This isn't about sports—I'm doing it because I want to make wine!

Hayashi: Exactly. Like, "I'm into wine, you know?" That kind of thing is necessary. You know how it is—you don't actually want to buy the dirty book.

Abe: It's research material!

Nozaki: It's strictly part of the job, you know?

Hayashi: By doing that, I thought we could attract people like my former self who hated sports.

Hayashi: And then, make it invisible. This is totally for me, though. You know, there are personal gyms now. I think it's because it's embarrassing, right?

Abe: What is it? A privacy issue?

Hayashi: The biggest reason people can't go to the gym is that everyone there is super buff. And joggers, too—they all look weirdly good, right?

Abe: Yeah. Everyone's wearing stylish gear.

Hayashi: What I liked in America was seeing people who were kinda pudgy jogging.

Abe: Yeah, yeah.

Hayashi: I envy that lack of concern about what others think. But since this is Japan, it's probably the Ichiran style. I wrote down "invisibility" for now.

Nozaki: Hahaha! Not "visible," but "invisible."

Abe: Yeah, there's definitely that embarrassment about being seen while training.

Hayashi: Exactly. You know, there are people who are running their hearts out but end up looking like they're goofing off.

※2 "Where Sumi-san is doing it": Secretary Sumi also experienced "DigSports". He had his height, vertical jump, 50-meter dash, softball throw, and sideways jump measured. Even though he only took the fitness test, he suffered from muscle soreness the next day and beyond.

※3 " Bigfacebox ": Developed by Hayashi and Yoshida Tomofumi of the Techno Handicraft Club using a cardboard box, Fresnel lens, and LED lights. Exhibited at numerous events both domestically and internationally, receiving overwhelmingly positive feedback each time.

※4 "Making the Floor Slippery": Hayashi always incorporates this suggestion into any project. For this athletic testing system, common sense might suggest a slippery floor would prevent accurate measurements. However, Hayashi prioritizes the "physical fun" aspect.

※5 "Workout app": After getting poor results on a health checkup, Hayashi was faced with the choice of either taking medication or exercising, so he started jogging and weight training. Recently, he's started feeling discomfort in his calves and has taken a short break from training.

※6 "Muscle-bound": Since starting strength training, he often says, "I think it'd be funny if I got really buff." A muscle-bound Hayashi, buff enough to compete in bodybuilding contests, would definitely be funny—and we'd love to see it happen.

We already live on the internet

Hayashi: Next, about the actual experience part. Nowadays, whenever you go to an event, there's always a photo spot. The photo on the top left is from a small music festival I went to recently, but they had this impressive sign, and everyone takes photos in front of it. Even in daily life, people use apps like Snow to edit their faces, worrying about how Instagrammable they look. It's like everyone is already living online.

Abe: Living online?

Hayashi: Don't you interact with Mr. Abe more often online than you actually meet him in person?

Abe: That's true.

Hayashi: So, everyone lives in the online world. When planning events, we have to consider how they'll look online. People often say "sell the experience," but you need that plus something that looks good online. In fact, even if a workshop isn't that fun, as long as it looks good online, that's fine, right?

Abe: Workshops can be pretty low-key visually. Everyone looks so serious.

Hayashi: Exactly. That's why I thought DigSports also needs to be photogenic online, so I came up with two ideas.

Hayashi: DigSports has this Best Shot feature, right? It captures your coolest photo.

Nozaki: That's right. It's a feature we're really pushing now, but I always forget to explain it (laughs).

Hayashi: I thought the Best Shot feature would look great online, but I also felt we needed something to make sharing easier. The next screen shows a photo taken with the Best Shot feature.

Abe: He's flying pretty high there (laughs).

Hayashi: Yeah, if you edit that further and combine it with a cool background (※8), you'd really want to share it. I think having a feature like this would make it more Instagram-worthy.

Nozaki: It's breaking through the atmosphere.

Abe: That's way too high!

Hayashi: I also think adding things like #DigSports within the image would be good. If we use chroma key, it seems achievable.

Nozaki: You don't even need chroma key—Kinect can do the cutout itself.

Hayashi: Really? That's amazing.

Nozaki: Since it knows the distance from the camera, it can just erase everything that's not at the subject's distance.

Hayashi: Then we can do it right away!

Nozaki: Technically, it's possible.

Hayashi: Another method we thought of to encourage sharing was a system that "just makes you number one."

Hayashi: There were categories based on age and physique, but it was hard to get first place. To make it possible to get first place (*10), we made the sets as narrow as possible, with all attributes being n=1.

Abe: That way you're guaranteed to be number one.

Hayashi: Like being number one in the category for "Nerima Ward native who was called Bob in school." Or "Shinagawa Ward resident with 0.2 vision who loves Hoppy." I thought those kinds of things would be great.

Abe: That would be satisfying, right?

Nozaki: It might be good if you could narrow it down yourself until you reach first place. Like, "I got first place in a category with n=15 people."

Hayashi: I see. Say you're ranked in the hundreds in Shinagawa Ward, then narrow it down to having 0.2 vision, and add a condition like your mother's maiden name (※11) to come out on top. That should make everyone want to share it. People love talking about themselves, you know. Like with personality quizzes.

Nozaki: But you'd need to collect incredibly detailed questionnaires beforehand (laughs).

Hayashi: Yeah, creating that data would be tough... Couldn't we use something like Fermi estimation?

Nozaki: We wouldn't know if they live in Shinagawa Ward without that data.

Hayashi: For example, if there's data somewhere on the percentage of people with 0.2 vision, and also data on the percentage who like Hoppy... Could we then narrow it down using Shinagawa Ward's population as the base?

Nozaki: If the percentage of Hoppy lovers were tied to the ward...

Hayashi: Oh, right. So I'd need to go to bars in Shinagawa and count empty Hoppy bottles or something?

Nozaki: Hahahahaha! We could estimate things like people who like Hoppy were born in the late Showa era, and so on. So, you, a 42-year-old with 0.2 vision who likes Hoppy, might be about a 0.2% possibility, making you number one, or something like that.

Hayashi: It's fine to be arbitrary! There's no way to verify it anyway.

Abe: Even if it's just a guess, if it says you're number one, you'd be happy and want to share it, right?

Hayashi: If no one objects within 24 hours, we could just declare it number one.

Nozaki: If someone objects then, we add another condition to find the real number one.

Hayashi: That sounds like it would make people really happy.

Nozaki: Though it feels like the genre's text is getting longer (laughs).

Hayashi: It's like blockchain. It just keeps getting longer. Well, I'm just throwing out buzzwords here. It's kind of nice, like a fragile society.

Nozaki: Because every single user is number one, right?

Hayashi: How about naming the service "I'm Number One"?

Nozaki: I'm getting excited to launch it. Development seems pretty simple too.

※7 "Small-scale music festival": A music festival held in Kaga Onsenkyo. Numerous artists participated, including TOKYO No.1 SOULSET, TOWA TEI, and Makita Sports. Hayashi brought his "Face-Enlarging Box" here too, encouraging artists to share photos of their enlarged faces on social media.

※8 "Cool background": The background Hayashi chose because he thought it was cool was space. He later regretted it because the photo ended up looking like a rocket reaching satellite orbit.

※9 "Technically, it's possible": The nuance of "Technically it's possible, but whether we actually do it is another matter" was conveyed by the punctuation after "Technically".

※10 "To be number one": Hayashi is always searching for categories where he can be number one, saying things like "I eat the most mandarin oranges in this apartment building."

※11 "Mother's maiden name": While discussing narrowing down conditions, the conversation shifted to the "secret question" used when setting passwords.

Using data to create romantic encounters

 

Hayashi: So, the question is how to utilize the accumulated data. I've come up with three B2B-style ideas for that.

Hayashi: First, having data means we also have data on how to improve metrics, right? Like, lifting your leg this way improves the numbers.

Nozaki: Right. So if someone's dexterity is low, the advice would be something like, "Practice your throwing motion." It's less about detailed advice like "Lift your foot like this," and more about diagnosing the type of training needed.

Hayashi: Either way, since we have that data, why not make it consumer-facing? Like a fortune teller in the corner of the venue, selling it that way. Then when you look at the info you bought, it says something pretty basic like "swing your arms more."

Abe: Well, if it's 100 yen, it's worth it, right?

Hayashi: Exactly. And if you put this in a gacha machine, kids would definitely buy it. The act of spinning is cathartic. Plus, kids these days are used to in-app purchases, so they'd be like, "Oh, it's a microtransaction," totally cool about it.

Abe: Gacha, that's good.

Nozaki:...

Hayashi: Also, at the end of the diagnosis, it shows three options like "The perfect sport for you is..."—baseball, soccer, etc. We get minor sports organizations to advertise there. The ones paying us get priority placement with a [PR] tag, just like a gourmet site.

Abe: Native ads, right?

Hayashi: Exactly. The "recommended order" is basically the order based on how much money they're paying.

Nozaki: It says "5,000 yen cashback"...

Hayashi: Like, "Apply here for cashback." We create these recommendation slots.

Hayashi: Finally, there's the romantic notion that someone with the same stamina as you exists somewhere far away. Your stamina level matches that of, say, Mr./Ms. Sri Jayawardhanaparkotte (※12) – someone in a city you've never heard of. The romance of knowing someone with your exact stamina exists out there. And if, by some chance, that person is nearby? The chase just keeps going. Because your stamina is the same, the fun time just keeps going. Even when you're completely exhausted, it keeps going.

Abe: Because your stamina is the same, you get tired at the same time.

Hayashi: Exactly. That's the kind of endless happiness you get. I think there are competitions between people with the same stamina, but it'd be great if they were lovers.

Nozaki: That's nice. As a feature debuting at the next event, your type will be revealed as an animal (*13).

Hayashi: Oh!

Nozaki: So you can see, like, "This person is the same Elephant type as you."

Hayashi: Right. Like elephants and elephants are a good match.

Abe: Like a fortune-telling game.

Nozaki: Elephants and lions don't get along. Basically, it shows large animals like big bodies and features, while smaller ones get cute animals like sea otters.

Hayashi: What about gorillas?

Nozaki: We included gorillas too, but some members said they'd hate being called a gorilla.

Abe: It'd be tough if someone already had a nickname like "Gori," right?

Nozaki: Some said it could lead to bullying, so they asked us to stop.

Abe: These days, that kind of thing is tricky.

Nozaki: So creating all 16 types was incredibly tough; we revised it about seven times.

Hayashi: It might be fun to just go with elephant types. Indian elephant, African elephant, Naumann elephant.

Nozaki: That way they wouldn't fight, but...

Abe: But it'd be hard to tell them apart (laughs).

※11 "Gachagacha": Among the projects Mr. Hayashi worked on is one called the "Giant Unwanted Items Gachagacha." It's a project where people put unwanted items into a giant gachagacha machine and exchange them. At an event in Osaka, it was spun 2,400 times over four days.

※12 "Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte": The capital of Sri Lanka. The name originates from Sri (sacred), Jayawardenapura (the name of the second president), Pura (city), and Kotte (the original name of the city).

※13 "Your type is an animal": Among the 16 animal types, the only one that's fictional is the "Dragon." I've heard from the developer of the animal fortune-telling system that they included the fictional "Pegasus" because it was the only one that didn't fit the characteristics of existing animals, for people who just didn't match any of the others. Incidentally, Mr. Hayashi's animal fortune is Pegasus.

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Following Mr. Hayashi's suggestion, we prepared panels at the recent event to create a space people would want to share. This series finally saw his proposal adopted.