This month's MVP award goes to:
Satoru Matsunaga, Supporting the Operations Team with Technology

At Monosus, we award an MVP at our monthly all-company meeting. This month's honored recipient was Satoru Matsunaga from the Creative Department Operations Team.

Although he may appear unreliable at first glance, his nonchalant demeanor is inconceivable (sorry!), but he has a quiet strength that leads the operations team from a technical standpoint, and it was his approach to his work and his achievements that were the key to his recognition.
Matsunaga joined the operations team several years ago with no prior experience in web production, and has made a major contribution to improving the team's technical capabilities in recent years.

"Operation" means:
Making the world a little better

Matsunaga is involved in the operation of several websites. At one site, he works as a director, managing a total of eight operation staff, and at another site, he works as a Javascript writing technician. He also works on projects to improve templates for CMS that are updated by customers.
Even outside of projects, I am actively involved in team management from a technical perspective, such as introducing tools to make team work more efficient and holding in-house study sessions to improve technical skills.

For him, his job, operations, is "a job that makes the world a better place, little by little."
For example, when coding responsive emails, which require a unique structure different from that of web pages, even though there is little experience in this field within the company, we consider the user group to which the email newsletter will be delivered and assemble the code to suit the target email client.
Or when an e-commerce site incorporates a new function that makes it easier to see "products recommended for you." I deliver the function I created to customers, hoping that it will help more users find the products they need.
This increases the opportunities for the services and products on the website you are involved in to be seen by people who need them, and makes the website easier to view and use for users who visit it.
For some users, these improvements may be just small ones that make things "a little more convenient" or "a little more lucky." But by accumulating these improvements, he approaches his work with the thought that "we are making the world a little better every day."

Because we have technical capabilities,
The range of things you can do is expanding

For him, technical ability is one of the weapons that helps him approach his work in this way.
By improving your technical skills, you can realize your customers' requests. If you know new technologies, you can suggest ideas that customers would never think of, such as "There's another way to do this." Even with a short and strict schedule, if you know the appropriate automation and efficiency tools, you can meet the customer's desired delivery date.
"Because it's necessary to make the world a better place, little by little." This seems to be what motivates him to improve his skills every day.

"Even though I say that, deep down I simply love it, so I think that's why I want to know more about it."
As he says this, he laughs sheepishly.

He learns new technology because he likes to think about its structure and how it works. He doesn't just skim through thick technical books, but reads them from cover to cover, over and over again, to understand the essence of the material.

He once told me this while we were chatting.
"When I'm playing with my child using Lego blocks and we make a face using car wheels as glasses, I get even happier than the child."
He mobilizes all of his knowledge and skills, thinking about this and that. He tries out different things, thinking about whether this technology can be used, or what about this. For Matsunaga, thinking about how to utilize technology in the sites he is involved in is perhaps similar to the curiosity he feels when building Lego.

After receiving the MVP award,
What doesn't change, what changes

Coinciding with winning the MVP award, Matsunaga began working as team leader (a sub-leader-like role) in January, taking on the role of leading the operations team.
Even before receiving the award, he had set a goal for this year: "To achieve 100 improvements this year."
As the world and website trends change rapidly, operational work does not mean repeating the same thing every day. It is essential that websites are constantly improved, from yesterday to today, and today to tomorrow, and there is a constant demand for speed and quality improvements in each and every one of our daily tasks.

Although he had been able to increase the things he could do in his own way, he still lacked confidence in whether he should continue on in this way, in how to improve his skills, or in the content of his work.

Having received this award, he straightened his hunched back a little and said, "I am confident in the path I have taken at Monosus so far, and I will continue to learn new knowledge and skills and share them with everyone."

With the confidence that comes from winning this award, Matsunaga will continue to maintain his desire to "make the world a better place," and will work more vigorously and proactively than ever to improve his own technical skills while also spreading his knowledge, skills, and study methods to those around him, getting everyone on his team involved.