"I don't know, but it should be interesting."
Creating a space to connect makers with manufacturers, and makers with local communities - Part 1
~ Interview with Shigeru Kobayashi (Professor at IAMAS) ~

The connection between Monosus and Shigeru Kobayashi was first made two years ago at the Tokyo Work Design Week (TWDW) held at Shibuya Hikarie. It all started when he appeared asa guest speaker at Innovation Tohoku*, run by Google, on the topic of "What everyone can do locally with the Internet."

Since then, we have been working together with Kobayashi through the hackathon " Field Hack ," which has the theme of "region x technology."
Our company's Uehara, who has worked with Kobayashi-sensei through the planning and running of the three Field Hack events so far, says, "Kobayashi-sensei is always curious and seems to be having fun. He works surprisingly fast and can be strict, but he has a gentle demeanor. I would like to ask him what source of strength he gets that enables him to maintain his passion in his work."

* Innovation Tohoku: A matching platform run by Google that connects people who are taking on projects to revitalize local areas with people who want to participate in those projects. Monosus also helped run the platform.

Kobayashi is a professor at the Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences ( IAMAS ), which has produced a wide range of media creators, and serves as the general director of the Ogaki Mini Maker Faire . He continues to play a key role in the maker movement, connecting manufacturers (companies), makers (individual creators), and users.
His activities are wide-ranging, including involvement in unique activities such as Maker Faire Tokyo (since 2012, formerly Make: Tokyo Meeting) and the launch of the Electronics Club on the Japanese edition of Engadget , and there are many "mysteries" about him that cannot be known just through his connection with Monosus.

This time, we would like to have Kobayashi appear on Meguru Measuring Standards and hear from Uehara, who worked with Kobayashi at Field Hack, about his way of thinking and working.
(Interviewer: Ken Uehara / Interview structure: Kensaku Saguchi)

How can people who don't normally collaborate meet and join forces?

Uehara : Let's start from the very beginning. Professor Kobayashi, how did you become a professor at IAMAS* and begin to do the kind of work you do today?

*2 IAMAS: Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences, located in Ogaki, Gifu Prefecture. A public university with only a graduate school, the main purpose of which is to train researchers in media culture. The university's founding principle is the fusion of art and science, and its main research theme is practical expression that combines cutting-edge technology and culture, producing a wide variety of media artists and creators. (See Wikipedia's "Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences" (as of August 23, 2017))

Mr. Kobayashi (hereafter, titles omitted)
After graduating from university, I got a job at an electronic musical instrument manufacturer. The first job I had was creating sounds to go into electronic instruments. I was a sound creator in a very unique genre.
The reason why I wanted to do this job is because it is a role that only an electronic musical instrument manufacturer can play, and the sound that you create will ultimately be the point of contact with the user, the player. I thought it would be really interesting to be able to design that point.

It was just when the company was looking to add a new employee to the department, so I was lucky enough to get the job right away without having to wait in line. However, I tend to get bored easily. After working on several products, I took on a new challenge by taking the seeds of new technology that were born in the company's technology research center and turning them into products.

Uehara: Is it a job like launching a new business?

Kobayashi : It's what we now call prototyping. The people doing the research feel that the technology has potential, but it's not in a state where other people can understand it. My job was to see and touch it, and make it possible for others to feel it.
From there, I was also able to be involved in launching new businesses, and looking back on my time as a company employee, I was able to do a lot of really interesting things.

Uehara: How did you end up at IAMAS?

Kobayashi
There is a professor at IAMAS named Masayuki Akamatsu . In 2002, he invited a lecturer named Joshua Kit Clayton to a workshop called " DSP Summer School 2002 ," but he only spoke English, so he asked if there was anyone who could translate for him, including the terminology of the tools and mathematical concepts. The idea came through an acquaintance of mine who works at an instrument manufacturer.
I wasn't particularly good at English itself, but when I heard I could help with beta testing of a new tool, I was interested and raised my hand.

It seems that Akamatsu remembered me from that connection, and when someone from IAMAS was retiring, he asked me, "Would you like to come to IAMAS?" However, at the time, a new business venture within the company was just starting up, so I declined. Fortunately, after the product was released, he asked me again, and at that time I was just thinking about trying something new, so I said, "Please do." That's how I got to IAMAS.

IAMAS website (as of September 5, 2017)

Uehara: Were you interested in your current activities of coordinating manufacturers, makers, and users even back then?

Kobayashi: I think it grew from a combination of luck, timing and external factors.
After I became a lecturer at IAMAS, I started looking for tools that would be useful to designers and artists who had something they wanted to make but had no knowledge of electronic circuits, but still wanted to make something interactive.

We tried out ready-made products and even held workshops to teach them, but it just didn't quite solve our problem. So we thought, why not just make it ourselves?
A group of faculty and students who shared the same concerns got together and developed a tool called "Gainer*." They intended to use it themselves, but when they showed it to people outside the company, they were told that "you should release it," so they decided to sell it on a trial basis through connections with alumni.
As a result of this experience of releasing things that had a handmade feel to the world, I ended up exhibiting some work at the ICC , an NTT museum, and got people from outside involved in the preparations.

*Gainer: An open source toolkit for user interfaces and media installations. It has a variety of functions, including an acceleration sensor (measuring acceleration and tilt), a vibration sensor (measuring how much something is shaking), a touch sensor (measuring how much force is being applied to touch), and a pyroelectric sensor (detecting people). (See KAKEHASHI, "Developer of the open source hardware "Gainer" ").
Photo courtesy of ICC

What is it? The seeds we planted ourselves were the catalyst, but external factors also came into play, and it led to the next step. I think that if we were to create a new tool now, it probably wouldn't be talked about or attract attention.
But it was new at the time, so I think luck and timing were also a factor. We were also lucky to have the opportunity to witness designers and artists creating various works using the tools we had created.

Uehara: I get the feeling when we work together on "Field Hack," but do you like working on creating "spaces," Professor Kobayashi?

Left: Professor Kobayashi, Right: Uehara (interviewer)

Kobayashi : I may simply be the type of person who easily gets bored, but I am always conscious of where we can create something new within the scope of our own challenges. Currently, IAMAS, where we are, is not a place where we can take a brute force approach using great financial and manpower like a large company, but on the other hand, there is room for us to work on a voluntary basis.

The force that can be generated is small, but if the field is one of big change, then we can send out something new. We are always looking to see where such a field is, and if we can't do it alone, we are always thinking about who we can do it with.

Uehara: What about making things with your hands?

Kobayashi : Of course, I like making things with my hands. But even if I make something myself, it will be within the scope of my own ability. Nowadays, the word IoT is being tossed around so much that people are saying, "That's enough," but no matter how genius you are, there is a limit to what an individual can do, and I think it's impossible to make everything at a professional level.

When I think about it that way, I don't see much point in sticking to what I can do on my own, and I'm looking forward to a place where people with a variety of skills, experiences, and perspectives can collaborate.
How can people who would never collaborate well in normal situations meet and join forces? The job is to find the methodology, provide it, and improve it in various places. I feel that I can commit to that more.

Maker Faire Tokyo, the Electronics Club, and Field Hack: The beginning of activities to connect manufacturers and makers, and makers and the community

Uehara: What made you become involved with Maker Faire Tokyo?

Kobayashi
As I mentioned before, I used to work in sound design and new business ventures at a manufacturer. As people in the field know, there are many interesting developments going on that are unknown to the general public.
Even back then, I wondered if there was some way to get more people to know about these attempts, and I thought that if they could convey how interesting they were, then manufacturers and users of the products might be able to understand each other better.

However, in reality, products that contain technology such as electronic circuits and software have become black boxes, and are considered to be something special that only a select few can understand, but in reality, just like buying materials at a hardware store and making furniture yourself, technology should be something that anyone can touch and make with their own hands.
Around the time I had this mindset, the American technology-related DIY craft magazine "Make" was born, Maker Faire started there, and the "Maker Movement" came to Japan.

That was in the spring of 2008, when the "Make: Tokyo Meeting*" was held in an old gymnasium of an international school along the Sumida River. We started out by helping out with the event that would become "Maker Faire Tokyo." By the way, "Make: Tokyo Meeting" was a handmade event with about 30 exhibitors and 600 visitors.
*An event focused on electronics projects, organized by O'Reilly Japan Co., Ltd.

Maker Faire Tokyo was held in August 2017. On the day, many manufacturers, makers, and users gathered together.

Uehara: The current Maker Faire Tokyo has grown to over 10 times its size in terms of exhibitors and visitors.

Kobayashi : What was interesting in the beginning was that the value of the event hadn't been determined, and the organizers weren't clear on what to do. The people who were interested in something that they didn't really understand and came to participate were people who were fairly self-motivated.

What I remember most vividly is how difficult it was to explain to people, "What is this?", both at "Make: Tokyo Meeting" and when IAMAS started "Ogaki Mini Maker Faire" in Ogaki. It's easy to approach people who have seen it before and say "It's interesting, would you like to do it?", but when you're doing an event that nobody has seen before, it's also difficult to communicate with the media, with questions like "Is it an exhibition?" "No, it's not", "Is it an exhibition?" "No, it's not", "Is it a flea market?" "No, it's not", "So is it something like Comiket?" "No, it's not", "Is it a research presentation?" "It's not either" (laughs).

It's not an exhibition, a show, or a research presentation, but it's all of these things. So, even when I was asked to say "Describe it in one word" in a newspaper interview, I told them "I can't say it, that's what's so fascinating about it," and out of ten newspapers, only one or at best two would understand. The people who actually came to see the attraction, which you can't really understand unless you're there, said "That's true," or "I didn't really get it, but it was interesting when I came," and it spread. It was a luxury to be there at the scene.

Uehara: I get the impression that Professor Kobayashi is also putting a lot of effort into starting new initiatives in the local community, including the Ogaki Mini Maker Faire.

Kobayashi : We usually live in a regional city, so there's no point in following in Tokyo's footsteps. It would just end up looking like a degraded copy. It would be more interesting to say, "We did something that couldn't be done in Tokyo before," than to say, "We did it for the first time in the region."

Uehara's "Field Hack" was also one of the reasons that led to the start of Professor Kobayashi's proposal.

Kobayashi
In 2015, I was invited as a guest speaker at the Tokyo Work Design Week (TWDW) to talk about Innovation Tohoku's "What everyone can do locally with the Internet."* At the time, I had a feeling that I wanted to go one step further.
*Part 3: Geek in Local | Innovation brought about by geeks in the local area

The venue for the third part of the "What everyone can do for their local community with the Internet" event, "Geek in Local: Innovation brought about by geeks in the local community," held at Shibuya Hikarie on November 22, 2015.

That's because we started up an event called the Electronics Club* at Engadget Japan, which started out as a self-organized event, then gained corporate sponsorship and continued on. In the process, we discovered that there are a lot of makers out there who can turn their ideas into reality in a really short amount of time.
However, this is only for the duration of the event, and it is difficult to continue the project after it is over. The event produced results. A community of makers was also formed. That may be good enough. But if they could do this much in such a short time, it would be amazing if they could move on to the next step, and I thought it would be a waste.

So, while I was thinking about what to do, there was a session on "What technology can do locally," and as I was talking with the organizers, I thought that there might be a way to make it work.
So I submitted a very rough proposal for a "Field Hack" to both Engadget and Innovation Tohoku.

*Engadget Japan's Electronics Club: A participatory event that began in 2013 in which people who have never met before form teams to create prototypes. (For more information, see Engadget Japan's " I want to create something from it" Professor Shigeru Kobayashi of IAMAS [1]: Electronics Club Legends .)

Uehara : That was around the beginning of January 2016. That was when I met Professor Kobayashi for the first time, and Innovation Tohoku was also thinking about the vision of "What can technology do for the region?" We decided to just go ahead and do it, and the first " Field Hack ONAGAWA " was held during Golden Week. Looking back, it was a very fast pace.

Kobayashi : It's true that we started the first time without really knowing what it was. In order to gather participants, I also sent personal messages to people on Facebook asking, "What do you think?" and I kept sending out things without any basis, like, "I don't really know, but it should be fun."
However, there were also many people who thought, "It's the first time, so it must be interesting," which made me really happy. Also, the motivation of the participants in the first event was quite broad.

Uehara: There were really all kinds of people.

Kobayashi : Of course, Onagawa, the location of the first event, is symbolic. It was a place that sustained great damage in the Great East Japan Earthquake, and has been at the forefront of efforts to restore and rebuild the area.
I think the people who participated all had a very strong connection to the earthquake disaster. There were people who had visited as volunteers at the time, and people who couldn't go then but thought they could do something now. There were quite a few people like that, so the atmosphere was different from that of a typical maker gathering.

After Uehara Onagawa, one thing we learned was the importance of the theme. Where do you make things for? In order to set that in more detail, for the second " Field Hack TONO ", we set five themes to match the project launched in Tono City by Next Commons Lab , which participated as a cooperating organization, and called for participants.

And at the third " Field Hack YOSANO ", we tried to get the government involved in the discussions about the importance of continuing the project after "Field Hack", something that became clear through the first and second events. I think that it didn't end as a one-off event, but rather that each of us was able to disband with a vision for the next step. What do you think?

Kobayashi: I think so too. I would like to hear how things are progressing since then.
The first time, there was the excitement of starting something from zero, but at the same time, there was also a lot of confusion because it wasn't set in stone.

But, like "Field Hack," once an event starts going well, it starts to feel lonely (laughs). The organizers are busy making adjustments until the first day starts, but once things are going well, it's better not to get involved and stay out of the public eye.

Field Hack YOSANO held in June and July 2017

Uehara: That's true.

Kobayashi : When that happens, it's clear that the participants are having more fun. It makes me want to join in (laughs).

(To be continued)