Week 3, 2020 - Running uphill

This was the second half of my time in Tokyo, which I typically start by longing to go home. Health deteriorates, sleep quality is in the pits and energy is low. But activities are full-on, interesting opportunities continue to present themselves and I somehow find pockets of time to connect yet a few more dots. It’ll pay off in the following months.

Ended the week by going to the neighborhood library to pick up a few books for next week. They’ve rebuilt it from the ground up and it’s an amazing community space with everyone from babies to grandpas.

Client work

I took part in a user research project and spent a few afternoons designing a dashboard for another, so I feel grounded in practice. Too many workshop-only projects and short consulting gigs will dull the sword. Gotta keep doing the doing.

[Projects] Design Research Tokyo

Ran a ResearchOps 101 event, building on activities by the ResearchOps community. The prep was more stressful than I’d anticipated and so I was especially heartened to get positive feedback from an audience that I’ve come to know fairly well. To be continued when I’m back home in Paris, so that other communities can organize introductory events about operationalizing research. It was a blast to go out with the DRT organizer team two weeks in a row :)

[Projects] Secret upcoming project

Got together with Sachiko to feel out the edges of what we want to do and how we might go about doing so.

Reading:

コミュニケーション力を引き出す 演劇ワークショップのすすめ by 平田オリザ (link) - I was keen to learn more about how workshops are utilized in stage theater, especially by Hirata Oriza who uses them extensively to work out his scripts. This book offered a fresh perspective on tackling typical org culture topics like encouraging communication and creativity by using theater activities as a tool. Unsure how much I’ll be able to apply it myself but it was interesting how sensitive he is to how participants react to certain situations. Negativity, shyness, being boisterous or rebellious - these are all human reactions that need to be incorporated into the dynamics of the room. I’ve long stopped using the lens of “difficult participants” as I find it self-centered but Hirata takes it to another level with the normality in which he anticipates and rolls with these reactions.