Guiding future businesses and services with expert power. How "Expert Idea 500" shapes the future.

In Part 1, we detailed the "Future Persona" approach for defining target future users and its benefits. Part 2 introduced Future Time Use (FTU) for predicting future lifestyle behaviors.

This time, as we delve into this future perspective, we'd like to focus on our service "Expert Idea 500" (hereafter EI500) as a method for creating new businesses and services.

<Table of Contents>
▼What is "Expert Idea 500," the service that collects over 500 ideas from experts?

▼Why you can select the optimal idea from expert proposals

▼What happened when we used EI500 to envision the "Future Convenience Store"?

▼EI500: Your first step toward the future

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What is "Expert Idea 500," a service that collects over 500 ideas from experts?

Developing new businesses and services is a major challenge for many companies. The process of generating new ideas and concepts is particularly difficult. We often hear concerns like these:

• Getting bogged down in deep expertise, making it hard to generate flexible ideas
• Generating various ideas but struggling to select the best ones
• Spending too much time on idea generation and selection, delaying the execution phase

EI500 gathers over 100 experts deemed suitable for the subject matter, collects more than 500 ideas, and uses this to derive new business domains and concepts. We utilize this service to address the challenges you face.

The "Expert Idea 500" Process

Why You Can Select the Optimal Proposal from Expert Ideas

The key feature lies in leveraging the insights of experts with diverse perspectives. Their knowledge and experience play an indispensable role in generating new ideas.

This service is provided in collaboration with Mimir (*1). One of its key attractions is the ability to select experts from over 30,000 diverse specialists across up to 560 industries registered with Mimir, all active at the forefront of their fields, ensuring you find the right people for your specific area of consideration.

※1＝Mimir
Mimir leverages its high-quality expert network—built through group collaboration within its parent company UZABASE, domestic and international capital/business partnerships, and proprietary search functions and invitation-only membership—to conduct market research and provide project support. Beyond traditional industries (approximately 560), it excels in about 100 cutting-edge fields driving business transformation.

For example, a healthcare company can generate unprecedented new ideas by selecting experts not only from its own field but also from adjacent areas like health foods or sports-related industries.

Bringing together specialists from different fields to share their insights creates dynamic ideation, much like a jam session among professional musicians. This process generates multidimensional ideas that transcend single disciplines, significantly expanding the potential for new business creation.

Diversity of Experts

Furthermore, "Consensus Intelligence Technology (CI Technology)" (※2) ensures transparency and fairness in evaluating the ideas generated. This technology, developed by VISITS Technologies, is a Japan and US patented method for extracting the "most credible opinion" from responses to questions without a single correct answer. Its implementation in EI500 is realized through collaboration with the company.

※2＝Consensus Intelligence Technology (CI Technology)
Implementation in EI500 was realized through cooperation with VISITS Technologies. They developed "CI (Consensus Intelligence) Technology," which quantifies intangible assets like human creativity, discernment, and the value of opinions and ideas—assets that lack definitive answers—and obtained patents in both Japan and the US. VISITS Technologies is a J-Startup certified company, selected from approximately 10,000 Japanese startups.
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Traditional majority voting risks lowering selection accuracy by favoring ideas with the most votes. EI500 enables experts to mutually evaluate emerging ideas. Using CI technology, it calculates each expert's discernment ability from evaluation results and applies weighted voting.

By enabling evaluations that consider the "quality" of opinions, the most appropriate options can be selected. As a result, hidden gems and ideas often overlooked by conventional evaluation methods receive proper recognition, allowing for the identification of truly viable ideas.

The Difference Between Majority Rule and Consensus Intelligence Technology (CI Technology)

The EI500 execution process transcends a simple ideation session, becoming a space for co-creation among experts. Through this process, we not only gain ideas that create new value but also gain deep insights into the impact these ideas will have in the market— —for example, differences in empathy or novelty.

What happened when we used EI500 to envision the "Future Convenience Store"?

Let's introduce an actual ideation case study. This time, we utilize the " Future Persona " introduced in the first installment of this series, which depicts future people and their lifestyles. Using this, we can imagine more concrete future lifestyles and needs, and conduct ideation based on them. We selected "Future Convenience Store (Convenience Store)" as the theme.

Image of ideation using Future Persona and experts

We conducted ideation targeting consumers in 2030 to explore desired products and services. For this project, we engaged 137 experts spanning 19 different industries and 23 diverse specialized fields.

By referring to the Future Persona cards, each expert could also imagine in detail the challenges, needs, and lifestyle changes future consumers might face.

For example, what products and services would children who are digitally connected (DX Elementary Students) – who skillfully manage both time and money through digitalization, yet find themselves constantly chasing schedules due to their digitalized timetables – desire?

We set questions like: What challenges and demands will future personas have, and what products and services will convenience stores need to provide to solve them? We then conducted online ideation sessions.

Here are some of the specific "Future Convenience Store" ideas that emerged as a result.

Examples of "Future Convenience Store" Ideas

• Well-being Convenience Store
  An idea where services and products to alleviate stress felt by customers are provided at their nearest convenience store. Services that utilize personal data to provide deeper value tailored to each customer's challenges.
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• Convenience Store My Address
  An idea for a subscription service where you register the nearest convenience store to your current address to receive mail and packages. A service that leverages the nationwide convenience store network to support flexible work and living styles.

※Similar ideas have been consolidated and edited for clarity.

The right side of the above diagram shows scores. As a result of mutual evaluation, all ideas are output alongside a "standard score" reflecting their assessed quality. This enables the precise identification of promising ideas from a wide range of proposals.

EI500: Your First Step Toward the Future

Comparison with Previous New Business Planning Approaches

This time, we introduced the overall concept and examples of EI500, which utilizes Future Persona to envision future businesses.

Implementing EI500 enables the rapid and effective generation of new business and service proposals. Furthermore, leveraging the deep knowledge and experience of experts allows for the acquisition of fresh perspectives and ideas that conventional evaluation methods often overlook.

We then refine the selected ideas further. For example, we explore new approaches by cross-referencing with other fields, scrutinizing profitability and feasibility, or combining them with existing businesses. This verification process, informed by our unique perspective, leads to the finalization of the business concept. Why not take the first step toward a different future with us?

[Click here for detailed information on Expert Idea 500]
https://www.d-sol.jp/ebook/expert-idea-500