This is the third installment of the relay-style member introduction article that began in January.
Mr. Okubo will be the first to speak, followed by Mr. Hatanaka, and then I'll be Sugie.
Since I work at the company, most of my interactions are with Monosus members, the team members who are always there, but on rare occasions I help out with internal planning or the Food Hub Project. One of the members who is almost always there is Kimi-chan, also known as Nakajima Kimi, who works as a freelancer. It is no exaggeration to say that I was able to be involved because I had the sense of security that she was with me.
However, I wasn't sure why I had started to feel this way, and my feelings were rather one-sided and selfish. So, inspired by this article in a series, I wanted to know more about Kimi-chan, and so I decided to interview her.
Monosas site and Kimi-chan
Although the Monosasasu website is now updated irregularly, it has been on hiatus for a while. I had only been with the company for a little over a year, and I don't think I fully understood the seriousness of the situation, but I do remember the lively atmosphere in the company becoming a little stagnant. The events of that time are also recorded in the articles.
Monosasu site, the road to restart "Is the site a shared space for everyone?" (August 1, 2019)
This article was the catalyst for Kimi-chan becoming the person who is creating and watching over the movement to restart the Monosasu site. Because of this, I first asked her, "How do you manage the Monosasu articles?"
"Right now, I'm running the site together with Saito-san , with Manabe -san giving me advice. From the latter half of last year to the end of the year, I was working hard to build up a large stock of content to post, but I'm starting to run out of ideas, so I'm worried about that... lol."
I didn't really understand what "stock" meant, but looking back, I'd been posting about once or twice a week recently. It must have been a very arduous process to start from zero when updates stopped and build up posting content.
In light of the current situation, many members are working remotely, making it difficult to communicate outside of work, which is one of the challenges. However, thanks to the many articles on the Monosasu site that focus on individual members, we have been able to learn about how our members are doing and find out sides of them that we didn't know before.
In addition, in terms of new prospects, he said, "I would like to create articles that focus on work." Recently, Monosus has been very active in recruiting, so it seems that many people will visit a site that shows the current situation of people. >> Wantedly is here
This conversation began when he said, "Actually, I do a little bit of support with recruitment," and then I asked him, "What other work do you do?"
Commonalities in work
https://www.monosus.co.jp/posts/author/-47/
As he mentioned, "I'm a little bit involved from the outside," in addition to his work with Monosus, he actually works with various organizations and teams. Recently, he said the following. Wow, that's a lot...!
- Kamapan & Friends <Natural Products Center>
- Japanese Job Department Store
- Toride Art Project
- omusubi real estate
- 100BANCH
- Oki Islands Education Promotion Project
I also learned a lot about what kind of work each of them does in their respective organizations and teams. I didn't write about their job in one word because it would be interpreted differently depending on the individual, but I felt that there was a common thread between Kimi-chan's job and my job, which is to "dig deep into the appeal of people and things and communicate and spread it to third parties."
"Digging deeper into the appeal of people and things" refers to communication such as interviews, and "communicating and spreading to third parties" refers to output such as writing articles, but Kimi-chan says, " I like listening, but writing is hard ." When I heard this, I said in a strange voice, "Eh? Is that so?", but when I heard the reason, it made sense.
I like listening
=> It's interesting to feel the other person's words gradually become more passionate as you communicate with them. You can learn about a world you don't know.
Writing is hard
=> Because I don't think I can compete with people (writers) who specialize in the field of weaving words.
When Kimi-chan is interviewed, she says, "I'm listening, but I can't hear." Creating an environment (atmosphere) for attentive listening is the top priority, and she relies on a recorder to record the contents of the conversation.
By the way, just before this interview, she had interviewed me in the opposite direction (Kimi-chan => me), and there was no obstruction other than a recorder placed between us.
It was as close as possible to a normal conversation, and the timing of her gentle nods was perfect. If I had my laptop open and was typing and taking notes, I don't think this would have happened. It was a comfortable moment.
In recent years, there has been a trend to use AI to efficiently transcribe text, but Kimi-chan says, "I listen to the audio on the recorder again and transcribe it," and "I'm not good at writing just to introduce something." I think this is what makes her words so warm.
What's wonderful about Kimiko is that even though writing is difficult, she never neglects the process of carefully weaving in-depth words.
An insatiable desire for the unknown
After listening to him talk about his work, he told me, "I feel that my work has taken me to many different places, and I work as a way to learn new things."
From what she said, I was beginning to think that she might be someone with a strong sense of curiosity about people, when she suddenly said, "But I'm not that interested in people . It's not that I want to meet a lot of people, and in fact, I'd rather stay at home as much as possible."
Did she see through my mind? Did she try to warn me? Once again, I said in a strange voice, "Huh? Is that so?" Kimi-chan is like a curveball, she throws unexpected words out of the blue, so sometimes my heart feels like it's going to jump out of my chest. lol
However, there were words that made me realize that making a given assumption was a bad example (in a good way), and that I had missed an opportunity to dig deeper into why I had come to think that way.
"Perhaps it's precisely because I'm not interested in people that I can accept what they have to say with an unbiased attitude. People often ask me during interviews, 'Is it okay to talk about this?' But I keep telling them, 'No, it's fine, that's what they want to hear.'"
I feel that saying "That's what I want to know" not only eases the other person's anxiety of "Is it okay to talk about this?" but also helps you delve deeper, and ultimately leads to "learning about a world you don't know about."
" I like listening, but writing is hard ," and " I'm not that interested in people, " he says some pretty strong words. However, the consistency of what he says is refreshingly straightforward.
She is so honest that it is difficult to understand just from her words. However, this interview made me realize that her complexity and modesty are also part of her personality.
SUGIE Natsuki