[No. 72] Yutaka Shiba

I am currently working in the User Interface (UI) design department for mobile phones at Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications. As fate would have it, I was transferred to one of our development centers in Lund, Sweden, in the summer of 2007, and I am now in charge of UI design for mobile phones for overseas markets.

For those who may not be aware, Sony Ericsson is a joint venture equally funded by Sony and Ericsson, and it is still a young company, established in October 2001. Its headquarters is in London, and it is a global company with development centers around the world, including Sweden, the US, and China, in addition to Japan.

Working in mobile phone development, I am constantly amazed by the speed of the industry. It is by no means easy to create and release products by timely incorporating trends in the industry as a whole, trends at other companies, and trends in internet-based communication, which will become even more mainstream in the future. On the other hand, it is a very exciting field.

I feel that I am able to contribute, albeit in a small way, to this kind of product development today because of the intensive time I spent in the Nagasaka Laboratory at the Department of System Design Engineering. In this article, I would like to look back on my time in the laboratory, which was the starting point for all of this.

After entering the Faculty of Science and Technology at Keio University, I chose the Department of System Design Engineering when selecting my department in my second year, which was the first turning point for me. As I was in the second class of students in the department, and it was still a very new department at the time, I honestly couldn't picture what I would be like after studying here and graduating. However, the main reason for my choice was that I was deeply impressed by the department's philosophy.

I remember deeply sympathizing with its core principle of cultivating a comprehensive perspective that organically connects various things and its aim to break new ground in society with a fresh viewpoint. Another reason might have been that I simply liked the cool sound of the department's abbreviation, SD, compared to other department names.

Because the department was newly established, there were certainly difficulties, such as the lack of past exam questions and reports. However, I loved the very energetic atmosphere of the Department of System Design Engineering, where the distance between teachers and students was close.

Life in the Nagasaka Laboratory, which began in my fourth year, was the start of a completely different life for me. For me, who had become accustomed to the one-way lecture format where I was a passive recipient, life in the laboratory felt like I was being forced to use my brain in a completely new way.

Although I was bewildered, what dispelled my confusion at the time was the presence of my classmates who were assigned to the Nagashima and Nagasaka Laboratories, including the adjacent Nagashima Laboratory, and the at-home atmosphere within the lab, which stemmed from Professor Nagasaka's personality. Thanks to such a comforting environment, I was able to smoothly settle into laboratory life.

My fondest memory is the year I spent with my senior, Taguchi (now Yoshihiro Taguchi, Senior Assistant Professor at the Department of System Design Engineering), during my fourth year as an undergraduate. Taguchi was my direct senior who worked on the same research theme, and he enthusiastically taught me the ABCs of research. Through the many hours we shared—conducting experiments all night, having daily discussions, and eating bento boxes from Asaba (a bento shop near the Yagami Campus) together—I learned from Taguchi the importance of having an inquisitive attitude and the perseverance to continue until a goal is achieved.

Perhaps because of that intense time, Taguchi is the senior with whom I still keep in touch and feel the closest to.

My three years of research, including my time in graduate school, involved many hardships. However, I was able to complete it solely thanks to the constructive advice from Professor Nagasaka, who guided me daily. Through my research, I was able to learn the ability to view things from multiple perspectives and, most importantly, the mentality required to do so. It is no exaggeration to say that the basis of my current thinking and judgment can be traced back to this experience.

It has been about two and a half years since I left Japan and started living in Sweden. I have become quite accustomed to life here and have gained the composure to view things objectively. Swedes have a national character of striking a good balance between life and work, and their style of thoroughly enjoying their leisure time is quite different from that in Japan. Of course, I think one factor is that the social system that supports this is fundamentally different from Japan's, but I strongly sympathize with the attitude of each person actively enjoying their own life.

While there are differences in daily life, I find that in terms of work, the types and essence of the problems we face day to day strangely do not change, even when the country and environment do.

Of course, there is a language barrier when working overseas, but I feel that the mentality and problem-solving approach that were drilled into me at the Nagasaka Laboratory in the Department of System Design Engineering have definitely been useful even abroad, away from Japan.

I want to continue to do my best to develop attractive mobile phones and enrich people's lives.