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2016/10/25 Project H (Vol.1): Feedback from Children's Laughter By the winning team "Play Your Body!"：Make a Difference!

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Home Project H (Vol.1): Feedback from Children's LaughterBy the winning team "Play Your Body!"

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Vol.1

Feedback from Children's Laughter By the winning team"Play Your Body!"

On July 30, 2016, at the Kodomo no Yume Hiroba "Bolero" event supporting earthquake recovery

(hereinafter abbreviated to Bolero), a curious exhibit by Hitachi Systems captured the hearts of

many children. This exhibit allowed visitors to create sounds by moving their bodies while

checking their movements on screen. The children had many different reactions: some children

just enjoyed the exhibit while others put a lot of effort into learning how to create beautiful

sounds. The tentative name of the exhibit was "Play Your Body". The idea for the exhibit was

selected as the winning entry (out of more than 600 submitted entries) in last year's Big Ideas

Contest. Mr. Koji Morikawa, the leader of the Play Your Body team and a member of the Research

and Development Division of Hitachi Solutions East Japan, said, "Seeing children enjoying Play

Your Body at this event filled us with an incredible sense of accomplishment, and we were able to

receive feedback from the children's laughter." However, the path from winning the Big Ideas

Contest to the day of the exhibit had not been an easy one.

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Left: Flyer distributed at BoleroRight: Children captivated by the wondrous exhibit

"A chance to test out my own ideas"

"I have always wanted to assist with new endeavors within the company and to actively

participate in new businesses," said Mr. Morikawa. Based on his past experience in developing

new businesses, he strongly believed that, for his company to continue growing, it was necessary

for more and more employees to take initiative in suggesting and launching new businesses. At

just the right time, President Higashihara announced the Big Ideas Contest, which caught Mr.

Morikawa's attention. The contest sought a variety of ideas, and contestants only needed to

submit a three‒page PowerPoint presentation to enter the contest. To Mr. Morikawa, the contest

seemed like a once‒in‒a‒lifetime chance to test out his ideas.

Mr. Morikawa, a longtime music lover interested in one day working in a music‒related business,

spent many days in thought and eventually came up with the idea to use motion capture

technology to translate body movements into sounds. He hoped his idea could be used in the

healthcare industry, for example, for physical therapy or as a service for improving the health of

the elderly.

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According to Mr. Morikawa, it is basic human nature to enjoy making sounds, and he wanted to

apply this characteristic to the field of healthcare, where there is an increasing demand for

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services. He added, "I was only able to submit my idea to the Big Ideas Contest, because this

contest was different from past contests for new business ideas. The Big Ideas Contest accepted

a wide range of ideas without restricting ideas to existing technologies or business areas."

Mr. Morikawa's idea eventually won the highest award at the final presentation of the Big Ideas

Contest, held in early February of 2016. A panel of judges including President Higashihara

praised the idea as "an idea that diverges, in a positive sense, from Hitachi's typical way of

thinking" and as "a reversal of conventional ideas", where, instead of moving one's body to

music, music is created based on one's body movements.

Hurdles between ideas and business plans

After Mr. Morikawa received the highest award for his idea, an interdivisional team was

established to examine ways to turn Play Your Body into a business. What kind of business can

be developed from creating sounds based on body movements? At regular team meetings,

people proposed various business ideas such as building a system that measures audience

enthusiasm at venues for sports events or concerts; building a system that detects abnormal

behaviors of operators in factories; and using Play Your Body for CSR activities at disaster relief

shelters, where people might suffer from depression caused by a lack of exercise. However, the

team was unable to reach a consensus on any of these ideas. Their discussions went in circles,

and the team was on the verge of giving up.

Finally, Mr. Iwata, the team's advisor, broke the stalemate, saying, "Even if we continue these

discussions internally, we probably will not come up with a solution that satisfies everyone. Let's

create a demo, even if it is only a simple one, and get a wide range of opinions from potential

clients and experts."

Using their business connections, the team conducted many interviews with elementary school

teachers, a company that produces educational materials for distance‒learning courses, people

involved with sports clubs or in the entertainment industry, and professors at universities. From

their interviews, the team gained new insight that had eluded them during their discussions at

team meetings. As an example, Mr. Morikawa described some of the requests (software

requirements) elementary school teachers had regarding the use of Play Your Body in class as an

educational tool. In addition to being easy to use and easy to introduce (in terms of cost),

teachers hoped that students would be able to communicate with each other while using Play

Your Body.

Other interviews were conducted with people related to the music industry, both inside and

outside the company, with help from the Global Youth team (winners of the Big Ideas Contest



from the previous year). It was through one of these interviews that Mr. Shinji Kidosaki of Hitachi

Systems was introduced to Play Your Body. (Mr. Kidosaki was in charge of the Kodomo no Yume

Hiroba "Bolero" event mentioned at the beginning of this story.)

Based on the interview results and Mr. Morikawa's wish, the ideas for turning Play Your Body into

a business were narrowed down to the following three:

1) A tool for learning how to dance for families who cannot go to dance school

(in light of the fact that dance is now a required subject at elementary and junior high schools)

2) An exhibit at events held at shopping centers, etc.,

with the aim of stimulating parent‒child communication,

which has been decreasing as the number of households where both parents work is increasing

3) A service for recording, posting, and sharing videos at karaoke boxes,

as a form of self‒expression or entertainment for younger generations

Harsh feedback from Unison Capital, Inc.

By June 2016, the team had narrowed down their potential business plans. Around that time,

"Make a Difference!" PJ held a meeting with Unison Capital, Inc. (an investment firm for venture

companies) to get the opinions of experts outside of the company. At the meeting, the two

parties discussed the three proposals for new businesses that had been selected as winning

entries of the Big Ideas Contest.

Meeting with Unison Capital, Inc., to exchange opinions

Regarding the three potential business plans for Play Your Body,

Unison Capital gave harsh feedback:

"You have thought about how to make this service popular,

but you have not thought about why this service will be popular."

"What makes this service 10 times better than other services?

The advantages of this service are unclear."

"To pinpoint the advantages of this service and to further enhance those advantages,



you should have more people actually try the service and observe their response."

Upon hearing these comments, the team realized they had become bogged down by product‒

oriented thinking. After the meeting, in an effort to get more feedback from users, the team

increased their demonstrations at various sites and events, such as at Bolero and at hands‒on

job training events for junior high school students.

Positive feedback from children and theevent manager at Bolero

Mr. Kidosaki, who invited Play Your Body to participate in the event, made the following

comment: "The charm of Play Your Body is that you know instantly that it will be fun. Moreover,

Play Your Body perfectly fits Bolero's concepts of experiencing real, cutting‒edge technology and

experiencing forms of expression, and is in line with our company's goals to make children

interested in IT."

On the day of the event, Mr. Kidosaki's ambition was realized when, as described at the

beginning of this story, many children queued up to experience Play Your Body. Through this

exhibit, children had fun and learned that IT could be used to achieve wonderful and interesting

things.

Looking back on the exhibit, Mr. Kidosaki added, "Usually it takes a lot of time from discussing an

exhibit like this until the exhibit is realized. However, with Play Your Body, the speed at which we

were able to accomplish our goal was unprecedented. I believe Mr. Morikawa's passion to share

Play Your Body with the world was the driving force."

Future plans

Today, the team is still in the trial‒and‒error process of commercializing Play Your Body, and they

are now at the most challenging stage.

As the team holds more and more activities where people get to try out Play Your Body, the team

has decided to commercialize the idea as a service targeting elementary school students,

concluding that "creating sounds by moving one's body" is enjoyable for children, especially

elementary school students.

The team is also examining what types of devices should be used for Play Your Body. Having to

purchase special hardware just to use Play Your Body might discourage or turn away potential

users. For this reason, the service will be provided as an app for smartphones which most people

already own. In this way, more people can enjoy using Play Your Body. Currently, the team is in

the process of creating prototypes and looking for business partners.

Final thoughts from Mr. Morikawa



We asked Mr. Morikawa some final thoughts on his journey thus far.

His comments are as follows:

"This contest has been a valuable opportunity for me to share my ideas with the world through

interviews and various events. The process of considering how to turn my idea into a business

plan and then actually implementing the business plan was exciting but challenging at the same

time. We were able to get this far, thanks to support from team members who introduced us to

people we could interview and who gave us advice on how to improve the service. We must also

thank the investment firm for providing honest feedback. The process of realizing my own ideas

is a thrilling feeling that I probably cannot get from any other experience. Now that we have

gotten this far, I will do whatever it takes to succeed in transforming my idea into a business. We

know there are more difficulties waiting for us down the road, but we are determined to face

them head‒on!"

Update: Since this interview, it has been decided that efforts to turn Play Your Body into a business will be discontinued.Reasons for discontinuation include the similarity of Play Your Body to projects by other companies and the fact thatthe team could not come up with a highly profitable business model. However, Mr. Morikawa will continue to exploreoptions for turning Play Your Body into a business as part of the activities conducted by the Research andDevelopment Department of Hitachi Solutions East Japan to create new business.

Vol. 1: Feedback from Children's Laughter By the winning team "Play Your Body!"

Vol. 2: Coming Soon

Vol. 3: Coming Soon

Vol. 4: Coming Soon

Home Hitachi "New Ideas" Contest Forging the Way to Hitachi's Future with $30,000

Inquiries:

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